Bill Hagerty: Tariffs ‘A Major Tool’ For U.S. To ‘Achieve Our Ends’

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said during an interview over the weekend that President-elect Donald Trump plans to use tariffs as a “major tool” to help the United States “achieve our ends” once he takes power in January.

Hagerty made the remarks during a Sunday interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press” with host Kristen Welker when asked about Trump’s proposals, which include enacting tariffs against Mexico, Canada, China, and countries in the BRICS alliance — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia.

“One of the most important things that we have as a nation is our economy,” he said. “That’s the most incredible source of competitive advantage that the United States has. Access to our economy is a privilege. If you think about it, we’ve made access to this economy a strategic tool ever since World War II. If you think about what happened in Japan and countries in Europe, when those economies were decimated, the United States put in place very favorable terms of trade to get those countries to rebuild their economies, to trade with us rather than trading with Communist countries.”

“We have used these tools effectively decade after decade after decade,” he continued. “Right now, the United States has the most open market of any major economy in the world. We need to take a very hard look at countries that don’t have our best interests at heart. Countries that are allowing our borders to be violated, and use those tariffs as a tool to achieve our ends.”

Hagerty said that the tariffs will hopefully lead to “a correction of the behavior that’s taking place right now that is letting fentanyl flood into our border, that is allowing people to flood into our country, millions of people, undocumented, illegal people breaking into our country.”

“It needs to stop,” he continued. “And President Trump is going to use every lever at his disposal to do it, and I think it’s absolutely appropriate to use tariffs as one of those tools. It’s a major tool.”

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