What Trump promised in 2016 on tariffs. And what he delivered (a lot).
10/28/2024 15:20
It was exactly eight years ago that Donald Trump offered a variety of promises on trade and tariffs. He largely kept them during his presidency.
It was eight years ago that Donald Trump — then in the home stretch of his first campaign for the presidency — offered a range of promises on trade and tariffs while barnstorming the country.
A Yahoo Finance review of those speeches found that his pledges, while less sweeping than today and with some Trumpian flourishes that never came to be, are promises that he largely ended up keeping.
On October 5, 2016, before a crowd in Henderson, Nev., the then-candidate pledged to "apply tariffs and taxes to the countries that cheat...that way our businesses can compete and we don't lose our jobs."
"We will establish tariffs," he added a few days later in Gettysburg, Pa. "There have to be consequences."
He then went on to a term in office where he pursued and implemented very similar policies.
There were examples of apparent bluster, such as a pledge to levy a 35% tariff on specific companies, but what Trump showed during his 2016 run is that trade is an area where he has a record of keeping his word.
"He's not very movable on trade issues, and he does what he says he's going to do," said William Alan Reinsch of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a recent interview.
Reinsch, a former trade lawyer and under secretary of commerce, added of Trump's current promises for both across the board tariffs and new duties on China: "I think he means it and I think he'll do it." The key question in his view is if the courts intervene to block it.
Trump's 2016 promises are instructive for today, with the now third-time candidate running on a new and massive trade agenda if he wins.
In addition to across-the-board tariffs of 10% or higher, he is promising 60% tariffs on China. He is also promising things like a Trump Reciprocal Trade Act that would automatically put tariffs on nations in response to their duties on the US — "an eye for an eye, a tariff for a tariff" as Trump has put it.
Those varied promised come as some of Trump's business-world allies — reflecting the deep unpopularity of tariffs among business leaders — have tried to downplay the talk as bluster or a negotiating tactic even as Trump repeats and often doubles down on them at nearly every stop.
Another study of Trump's 2016 varied campaign promises conducted by PolitiFact at the end of his first term also found that the candidate delivered on trade.
He promised during that campaign to impose tariffs, to renegotiate NAFTA, and withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. "Promise kept," PolitiFact said of all three.
Trump also took action on a fourth promise to declare China a currency manipulator but ended up compromising, according to the group.
Many Trump promises on other topics that year — such as ones to remove all illegal immigrants from the US and another to repeal Obamacare — didn't come to be and are now making a return as nearly identical promises in 2024.
On trade, Trump was able to change the political landscape around tariffs which means he is able to offer new and much bigger promises — with higher economic stakes.
Trump has likened his tariff plan to a new "ring around the collar" of the US, with tariffs often described not as part of negotiations but with those high duties as an end goal in themselves to protect US industry.
"We're going to protect those companies with strong tariffs because I'm a believer in tariffs," Trump said earlier this month at the Chicago Economic Club.
And high tariff revenue may also be needed to pay for Trump's many other campaign promises, with the former President even often talking warmly about the era of William McKinley and the 1890s.
That was an era of US history before the income tax when tariffs were a significant driver of federal government revenue.
"He's got fixed views on trade," notes Reinsch of Trump. "He's had the same views for 40 years."
The Yahoo Finance review of speeches — which examined Trump stops throughout the month of October 2016 — did find some examples of how his discussion of trade has changed.
For one thing, tariff talk was far less common back then.
Many of Trump's closing rallies that year, according to a search of the transcripts, never mentioned the word tariff even as it became a centerpiece of his economic policy once he was in office.
In fact, although trade topics did come up, the word tariff wasn't uttered in any of the three 2016 debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton, according to a review of the transcripts.
Trump also made some trade promises in that campaign that weren't kept, especially when it came to threats against specific companies.
He often talked about 35% tariffs directed at anyone that moved jobs overseas.
"If a company wants to fire their workers, move to Mexico or other countries and ship their products back into the United States, we will put a 35% tax or tariff on those products," he promised eight years ago in Toledo, Ohio.
Company-specific duties like that never came to be, nor is it clear they would have been legal if Trump had tried.
"Companies like Apple (AAPL) will start making their iPhones and other products inside the United States," Trump also promised in 2016 during a stop in North Carolina. "You watch."
That also didn't come to be as most of Apple's iPhones remain made overseas to this day, though the company but did announce some expansions in the US in the Trump years such as a plant in Texas making desktop computers.
Trump has also more recently talked about granting the Apple exceptions to his past (and possibly future) duties, saying that CEO Tim Cook has regularly been directly in touch.
To this day, Trump continues to single out specific companies he thinks crossed him.
A favorite punching bag in recent months has been John Deere (DE), with Trump in September promising a 200% tariff on imports and "everything that you want to sell into the United States" if the company moves to Mexico.
Trump then later suggested that the company had changed it mind about moving production to Mexico in response to his threats.
The company has publicly dismissed Trump's claims, calling them entirely fictional.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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