Democrats have spent the last two weeks railing against President Donald Trump‘s tariff scheme, calling it reckless and unnecessary, and even accusing him of illegal market manipulation.
In response, Trump allies have dug through the vault to hit them with their own words.
“Interestingly, Chuck Schumer and Crazy Nancy wanted to do this for years,” Trump said Wednesday outside the White House, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Decades-old clips of the pair have resurfaced online showing them arguing fiercely in favor of high tariffs on China.
INCREDIBLE VIDEO FROM 1996 AS NANCY PELOSI CALLS FOR TARIFFS ON CHINA DUE TO THE EXTREME IMBALANCE OF TRADE.pic.twitter.com/zPbj5tJN0S
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 5, 2025
“How far does China have to go?” Pelosi says in a clip from 1996. “How much more repression, how big a trade deficit and loss of jobs for the American worker, and how much more dangerous proliferation has to exist before members of this House of Representatives will say, ‘I will not endorse the status quo?’”
Not only do both politicians call for cracking down on China, but they each imply that solutions are long overdue in clips that are 20 and 30 years old.
🚨SHOCKING: Senator @ChuckSchumer passionately advocates for a 27.5% tariff on China in 2005!
“It says to the Chinese that their unfair trade policies have got to end. The Chinese have enjoyed a yuge trade surplus with the U.S. Every year it gets larger and larger.”
“Much of… pic.twitter.com/IzijFbHPih
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) April 7, 2025
“The Chinese do not play by the rules,” Schumer says in a 2005 clip arguing for a bipartisan tariff. “We have talked and talked and talked as a nation to them. With other nations of the world, we have talked and talked and talked to the Chinese until we’re blue in the face. The time for action is now.”
Pelosi and Schumer complained of Chinese currency manipulation, worried over the constantly expanding trade deficit between the United States and China, and lamented the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs, all points that Trump and his team have made repeatedly since last fall’s election.
“Everybody knew you had to do it, but they never had the guts to do it,” Trump said last week. “It does take guts. It even takes guts for our country to go through with it. That’s why I say be cool. … It’s going to work out, and it’s working out.”
Pelosi and Schumer sound different now, though they insist that Trump is not following the path they laid out all those years ago.
Trump’s tariffs are a “self-inflicted disaster,” Pelosi said in a statement that also includes quotes from President Ronald Reagan defending free trade. Pelosi’s office pointed back to the statement when asked by the Washington Examiner about her 1996 remarks.
Schumer addressed his resurfaced clip directly, acknowledging on the Senate floor that he sometimes favors tariffs.
“I appreciate my supporters on Twitter reminding everyone that I have long championed tough trade policies on China, going back to my early days in the Senate,” he said. “But I, and the American people, oppose a whimsical, nonsensical approach to international trade, especially one that so clearly will increase costs on American families.”
“But to raise tariffs on allies such as Canada and Israel?” Schumer continued. “Everyone knows that makes no sense.”
Democratic strategists who spoke to the Washington Examiner made similar points, decrying Trump’s methods and distinguishing between tariffs on China and those on U.S. allies.
“Democrats don’t oppose all tariffs,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said. “Back when the Chinese were dumping steel product on the American market [in Trump’s first term], that was an appropriate response for tariff increases.”
Former President Joe Biden kept most of Trump’s China tariffs in place when he took office in 2021.
“But Trump imposed tariffs on every country in the world,” Bannon said. “Even some uninhabited islands near Antarctica that just have penguins on them. They’re just so willy-nilly and random.”
Tom Cochran, another Democratic strategist, agreed.
“Schumer, Pelosi, and Trump likely agree on a couple core aspects regarding the trade imbalance with China,” Cochran said. “But I think they strongly diverge on methods and approach to addressing these concerns.”
David Madland, an economist with the Center for American Progress, predicted that Trump’s high tariffs will hurt the American public even if some trade renegotiations were necessary.
“There is broad agreement that China violates laws and norms of trade and needs to be dealt with,” Madland said. “But Trump’s actions to raise tariffs on China as well as U.S. allies and whipsaw tariff rates up and down, while cutting public investments in U.S. manufacturing, are not the right way. Trump’s trade wars will increase prices and hurt U.S. businesses and workers.”
Trump allies have not focused on the nuance, instead pointing out the numerous times in the past when Democrats and left-leaning entities called for a rebalancing of trade relations.
Clash of cultures: Can the New Right coexist with the old — and with itself?
The White House released a fact sheet on Friday that highlighted a 2005 New York Times article lamenting the U.S. trade deficit and a 2009 statement from famed Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker blaming the Great Recession on trade imbalances.
“It’s cliché, yet true — the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and expecting a different result,” it reads. “The trade policies of the past several decades have failed this nation, its workers, and our communities.”
