Secretary Of State Marco Rubio Says Trump's Tariffs 'Should've Been Done A Long Time Ago'

During a press conference on Friday, Secretary Of State Marco Rubio answered a question about tariffs.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Secretary, what do you say to those who make the argument that the U.S. tariffs or the threat

00:05of those tariffs in the region actually creates an opening for China to be seen as the stable

00:11economic partner here? I don't agree with that assessment. I mean, look, at the end of the day,

00:16the United States has built these tremendous trade imbalances over the last 30 or 40 years.

00:20It's unfair to American and American workers and American, in addition to threaten our industrial

00:24capacity, trade needed to be revisited. The president campaigned on that, and that's what

00:29he's doing, and he's resetting it on a global scale. At the end of the day, look, I think

00:34countries are going to trade with multiple countries. We don't view this as an opening

00:37for anyone. We don't view it that way. We view it as an opportunity to reset global trade

00:42in a way that's fair for Americans after two or three decades of unfairness. If you look

00:47at some of these trade deficits, they're massive. They're massive. That has to be addressed,

00:50and that's not sustainable at the current direction it had gone. This should have been

00:55done a long time ago. President Trump's finally done it, and I think countries understand that

00:59this was different. If this was us targeting 10 countries or five countries, then I would

01:03understand why countries would be upset, but the truth of the matter is we're resetting

01:07tariff levels with virtually every country in the world, and so I understand if you had

01:12a deal where you were running these huge trade deficits with the United States and exporting

01:17a lot to the U.S. and built your economy around exports but had very little import or very

01:22little economic activity coming in from the United States, I understand why you don't want

01:25that to change, but I think most mature leaders, and everybody here is a mature leader, understands

01:31that that's not a sustainable dynamic. It was one that had to be changed, and that's what

01:35the President is doing. So we're going to be okay.