Wilbur Ross was Trump’s first-term tariff hawk. Now he says refunds give importers ‘an extra profit’ and pay them ‘more than the money’ they laid out
Source: Fortune ·
The former Commerce secretary says importers who passed tariff costs on to customers are now being paid back for money they didn't lose.
From the source
When Wilbur Ross ran the Commerce Department in President Donald Trump’s first term, tariffs had one job: shrink the trade deficit. Seven years later, he said the president is using them for something else, and that the refunds from the ones the Supreme Court struck down are going to the wrong people. “It’s a whole different picture,” Ross told Fortune. “He made the decision not just to use the tariffs for purposes of changing the trade deficit. He used them for a variety of other purposes. So it’s a whole different conceptual approach.” He called Trump’s second term one filled with “a different objective that he has.” Fix the trade balance Because importers pay tariffs at the border, they decide whether to absorb the cost or pass it on. In practice, most of it reaches shoppers: Federal Reserve data show American households paid about 90% of the cost of Trump’s second-term tariffs. Back during Trump’s first term, Ross’ tariffs came through a 1962 law, Section 232 of the Trade…