Virginia Rep. Don Beyer said tariffs on imports will "have a huge inflationary impact on the economy" in the United States as he spoke to Scripps News on Wednesday from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Rep. Beyer, a Democrat, pushed back in no uncertain terms about his opposition to placing a duty on imported goods and services, saying he is "instinctively anti-tariff."
The representative for Virginia's 8th Congressional District was also the former lieutenant governor for the state, and he chairs the U.S. Joint Economic Committee.
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A report from the Tax Foundation says the former Trump administration imposed nearly $80 billion in new taxes on Americans as tariffs were placed on products — to the tune of some $380 billion in 2018 and 2019. The tax foundation called it "one of the largest tax increases in decades."
In May the Council on Foreign Relations reported on the Biden administration's contemplation of a hike on tariffs for various imports from China. An announcement from the White House directed U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai to impose increases on around $18 billion in imports from China. The move came amid a four-year review of how the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration had made an impact.
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Rep. Beyer told Scripps on Wednesday, "The key thing is tariffs are not paid by the exporting country, they're paid by the people who buy — the middlemen in the United States — and then pass it on to consumers. The American people pay the tariffs, not the other country."
Rep. Beyer was a businessman before going into politics, and worked as a car dealer. He says with supply shortages, prices go up, and it can feel like price gouging.
"I think what a President Harris would have to do carefully, is to look at where the increase in prices is not based on supply and demand and is based on too much market power, a monopoly-type concentration," Rep. Beyer said. "It's going to be delicate to get it right, because you don't want to take the market out of the equation."
