with us here in New York NBC News correspondent Von Hilliard tracking the Trump transition and Senior business correspondent Christine Romans also joining us Washington Post National editor and MSNBC political analyst Philip Rucker So Christine we're seeing the markets already reacting but talk to us in terms of what goods what industries what kind of impact it's going to have on Americans just about everything you touch it will have an impact on cars for example big car industry in uh in Canada for example that half of the cars made in Canada are made by American companies and
half of the parts in those cars come from the United States and all of those parts go back and forth multiple times before a final assemble vehicle is is sold you start putting 25% tariffs on each of those moves and you're adding to the price of a car Tomatoes coming from Mexico uh any kind of produce coming from Mexico and a lot of our Imports come from Mexico in terms of grocery items those would cost more money and let me explain why because the president-elect doesn't believe this or doesn't acknowledge this but the the entity
that WR the check for the import tax is the Importer the company that's then going to send it to a grocery store or to a car dealership so that cost is passed on to Consumers so consumers would face higher prices for things and in the very near term the stock market is simply reacting to the fact that it's disruptive even if this is just a threat from the president-elect already people are signing deals to import Goods in the next 6 weeks 8 weeks nine weeks and so they are facing higher prices ahead I mean these
three countries Mexico can Canada China imported more than well we imported from them more than a trillion dollars worth of goods in the last year if we're expecting these tariffs prices could go up should people start stocking up on certain items well I businesses already have been if they can but small and medium-sized businesses don't have a half a million dollars laying around to buy you know ingredients now that they might need next year so the big companies have been preparing but smaller companies are at a disadvantage I'd make one last Point too Mexico and
Canada the president when he the first in his first Administration you know basically jettisoned NAFTA and made his own usmca us Mexico Canada agreement this would be in violation of his own perfect trade agreement that he made so raising questions about what that means in terms of the rule rules-based uh order for international trade that's such a good point and and V not only did the president have his own trade deal with a couple of these countries he threatened other tariffs last time around that he didn't end up following through on so will he follow
through this time and he went through with a lot and let's be very clear we've Americans have already lived through a trade war in 2018 and 2019 and you should also expect retaliatory tariffs right the US exports $2 trillion worth of goods and we saw in 2018 and 2019 those countries Mexico Canada China our European allies they plac retaliatory tariffs on our Goods that American Producers and manufacturers who rely on those export markets whether you're a lobster farmer in Maine or whether you're a soybean producer in Nebraska they have spent years developing these markets buyers
overseas but then there was a retaliatory tariff that was placed and so really this is just going to call into question what is Donald Trump actually looking for out of any trade deal whether it be with a new usmca 2.0 or out of a China trade deal because the Americans they suffered losses in 2018 2019 and 2020 because of the War what does Donald Trump want out of these it's not quite clear taxpayers kicked in for billions and billions of dollars to make you know American farmers whole again after they were retaliated again so taxpayers
paid the price and consumers paid the price in higher prices so Phil even before taking office this is where we're at Trump's blowing up his own Trade Agreement he's picking an economic fight with America's allies and arrival what do you make of it yeah well it shouldn't be surprising though because this is exactly what Donald Trump ran on uh in his campaign all year uh these tariffs were at the top of his agenda he talked about it at at virtually every turn uh and you know he could argue that because he uh won the presidency
and won the popular vote that there is support for this kind of a dramatic measure uh on day one I think it's going to be a real challenge however for his incoming economic team the new treasury secretary uh as well as some of his uh foreign policy leaders to really help uh implement this in a way that doesn't uh disrupt the US economy too dramatically and that also uh can keep sort of the global alliances in check that's going to be a massive challenge uh for the administration to navigate in those opening days assuming these
tariffs go into place so Trump's treasury secretary pick Scott bessent said this about the tariffs the day after the election watch my view and you know I I don't have a say now yet or maybe ever but is that the you know I would recommend that tariffs be layered in gradually which would the the price adjustment would be over a period of time Von he recommends the tariffs be gradual it doesn't sound like what Trump is saying in his tweets or in his social media posts is gradual is there a disconnect no and Howard lutnick
who is going to be the Commerce Secretary has also talked about having more targeted tariffs because there are some for example manufactured Parts like for automobiles that American manufacturers don't make which is what requires right like Cummins is a diesel engine company based out of Indiana there's some parts that they rely on to be coming into the United States to use for their machines and when you have that tariff that is placed on it it only increases the size of the price of the engines which gets to Scott besson's point and Howard lck's point is
that there needs to be some more targeted tariffs but that's not what Don Donald Trump is pushing for he's kind of going across the board tough style of politics approach here and when you're talking also come back to the what is the goal in the at the back end of this and when we go back to that China trade deal the first go around Donald Trump Justified the trade war in larg part to try to cut back on the manipulation of uh the market placed by China uh cut down on IP theft but all of
those stated goals of the Trump Administration they never came to fruition so Donald Trump is saying he's going to place tariffs on Canada and Mex to cut down on migration and drugs you know this is playing with the economy at the same time you're trying to play with another issue right it's all about the Border it's coming back to the Border there there's a lot at stake here take a listen to Eric Trump uh talking about what the purpose is of these tariffs you want to allow drugs to come through our Southern border we're going
to tariff you you want to allow them to come through Canada we're going to terar you China if you're GNA allow this stuff to get sold in our country largely produced in China we're going to add another 10% to your CH we are going to cost your countries your economies we're going to cost your businesses billions hundreds of billions of dollars Christine you touched on this earlier but the first Trump Administration did hit China with some tariffs what was the outcome of that did China feel the pain and did try to get China to make
some agreements about Fentanyl and the things that ingredients in drugs and it didn't work right um look the pain was felt by American Producers American factories American farmers especially I mean American farmers were really hammered pork producers and whiskey producers and all these things that had these big counter tariffs on the question is if President elect Trump puts on tariffs on day one are there then counter tariffs and then that's what becomes a trade war and that can be really disruptive to supply chains to prices for American consumers and again the person who pays the
Tariff The Entity that pays the Tariff China is not writing a check for a for an import tax that is the Importer the American company that then if you listen to the earning calls from these companies they have been all saying on the record they're going to pass those costs on to American consumers Philip Trump says these countries could easily stop the flow of fentanyl but we have to point out the Department of Homeland Security says the vast majority of fentanyl crossing the borders being smuggled in by US citizens in their personal vehicles so is
this policy really about stopping fenel well clearly uh you know Trump has made that argument he has said this is a retali ation for uh the flow of fenol as well as the flow of undocumented migrants but it's not as simple as he might portray and it's not as if you know the leaders of Mexico for example can just flip a switch and decide to stop all flow of Fentanyl and it would suddenly stop this is a very complicated uh issue in terms of uh the drug war and the drug trade uh it's elicit uh
it's illegal but it is happening uh and happening through so many different geopolitical forces and so uh it's not as simple as as the president-elect portrays but it is is uh what he says uh is a motivating factor for these uh tariffs that he wants to impose on day one Phil Trump has made a lot of big promises for day one tariffs deportations dozens of executive orders at the ready is there any skepticism inside his team that he can actually Implement these things on day one well uh they know how hard it's going to be
to implement these things on day one but one of the um effects of having made uh all of these Personnel decisions in terms of the cabinet leaders uh so quickly after the election is that they now have a period of time to actually uh plan uh to execute this in terms of governing to get those executive orders in place to figure out that agenda and to to create sort of the um get the paper flow ready so that this can all fall into place on day one in a more orderly fashion uh he has finished
assembling this cabinet much much sooner uh than he did 8 years ago during the 2016 transition and so that's a sign that at least they're they have the time now to try to prepare for this uh and develop a plan of action
