CHINA/CORONAVIRUS/COVID-19/ECONOMY/MEDIA/TARIFFS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “China, last year, would have had the worst year they’ve ever had in many, many years and decades. And that was because I put a lot of tariffs on China that they never wanted. And I don’t want them to have bad years, but they happened to have a very bad year last year. And that’s before the virus. Now, of course they didn’t even report their numbers this year. You know, they refused to report their numbers, right? But last year was a bad year for China, one of one of the very bad years that they’ve had. And that’s largely because I put tariffs on. Nobody ever put tariffs on them. Nobody ever did anything to China. China walked away from Obama-Biden. No tariffs, no downside, no nothing. Whereas we took in billions of dollars of tariffs, and they were all put on by me. And they don’t follow the phase one deal—it’s a phase one deal—if they don’t follow it, I would substantially raise the tariffs, if that were necessary. So far, I think they’re…I haven’t had the final report but it looks like they are. They’re buying a lot.”
-Donald Trump in a June 17, 2020 interview as quoted by WSJ Staff, “Transcript of President Trump’s Interview With The Wall Street Journal,” wsj.com, June 18, 2020