President Donald Trump’s economic plans are being set into motion, according to one of the newest top White House officials, who believes America will see the “biggest” fiscal reform on trade, energy, regulations and tax and spending cuts.
“When the people who are trying to cause panic over President Trump’s trade policy simulate what it’s going to do, they don’t account for all the other policies. So President Trump is drill, baby, drill and deregulate and tax cuts and reduce spending,” National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said in an exclusive interview on “Kudlow,” Monday.
“And if you look at tariffs as part of an overall strategy, you’re going to see, as President Trump says, a golden age,” he added. “And it’s going to be the biggest supply side reform that America has ever seen.”
On the presidential campaign trail, Trump repeatedly proposed tariffs on trade countries like Mexico, Canada, China and others to be used more as a negotiation tactic. This proved to work earlier this week when Colombian President Gustavo Petro swiftly backtracked on his refusal to accept deportation flights from the United States after Trump threatened tariffs and other measures.
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“I think that you saw from the Colombia negotiation that the president is going to use tariffs if he needs to, in order to get people to make policy concessions that are good for America, that put America first,” Hassett reacted.
“The bottom line is that a tariff isn’t necessarily just a weapon, but economically, if you do the math, a tariff can be part of a supply side strategy that includes a big tax bill as well,” the director continued, while confirming that a universal tariff is something that Trump and House lawmakers will “negotiate” in a reconciliation bill.
Also under reconciliation negotiations is the 15% corporate tax rate, which currently sits at 21%.
Hassett also emphasized the impact that domestic energy and gas production has on minimizing inflation, claiming Wall Street analysts had hypothesized wrongly about the extra costs of Trump’s economy.
“If you spend $1.5 trillion a year more on government spending, you’re going to get inflation. If you don’t let people drill, baby, drill, energy prices are going to go up… If you do, as Biden did over the last couple of years, kill 130 million chickens, then egg prices are going to go up. So the fact is that we’re doing micro things correctly, deregulatory things correctly, and we’re going to get the macro stuff right, too,” he argued.
The newly appointed economic director also pointed out: “Inflation under Joe Biden was just under 5% for his whole term, about a little bit less than it was under Jimmy Carter and way more than double what it was under President Trump. And we’re 100% on the ball going after inflation, but it’s going to require an all-of-the-above approach. And right now, we’ve inherited really high inflation.”
Trump is also aware of the artificial intelligence (AI) race’s future impacts on the economy, according to Hassett, but remains immediately focused on reversing consequential effects from Biden’s “reckless spending.”
“One of the really fun things in the last week… is to walk around and to see the DOGE people, to see Elon Musk in the halls and to see all the great ideas that people have to make sure that Americans are not seeing their money wasted by a wasteful government,” he said. “There’s a heck of a lot for our team to fix, and I think we’re very optimistic about our ability to rein in spending.”
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Fox News staff contributed to this report.
