Former Obama and Trump officials discuss tariff impact in Spokane

A businessman from Vancouver, Washington, posed a question Wednesday to the former U.S. trade representative under then-President Barack Obama and to the former chief of staff for President Donald Trump: How do tariffs help me?

Nathaniel Dick, the vice president of TigerStop, a manufacturer with about 50 employees, said his costs for electronics have doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite a current 25% tariff on aluminum and steel, his actual costs for those products have gone up 38% and 46%, respectively.

“As a local American manufacturer, I would love it if someone would be able to explain to me how an increase in labor costs, and now an increase in electronics and a significant increase in my raw material costs, makes me or other local manufacturers more competitive on a global or local scale,” Dick asked the panelists.

Ron Kirk, former Dallas mayor and trade representative under Obama, and Mick Mulvaney, a former Congressman from South Carolina and Trump’s former chief of staff, both had difficult answers for him.

“If Peter Navarro were here, I’d probably punch him in the mouth. But that’s entirely for different reasons,” Mulvaney said to laughter. What Trump’s senior counselor for trade, Navarro, would “say is, ‘Look. We have to go through this, because you need to be able to sell overseas, and you can’t because people overseas haven’t been buying your stuff forever because they’ve been taking advantage of America.’ ”

Speaking at the Association of Washington Business’s annual policy summit in Spokane, Mulvaney explained that the U.S. began a policy after World War II to eliminate tariffs against trade partners to “help raise quality of life around the world and to fight communism.

“And, we’re not doing that anymore. We’re changing 70 years of policy in the first seven months,” he said of Trump’s second term. “Is it particularly satisfying for someone who’s on the front lines and paying the price? No, but that’s what the administration would probably tell you.”

Kirk said business owners have to speak out about their strained conditions.

“I’m going to say you’ve got to survive until January when enough of the pain hits, and hopefully, all around the country businesses like you are going to their members of Congress and saying, ‘We know you love it. We know you want to support it, but we need relief,’ ” Kirk said.

The discussion, hosted by Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, a former state and U.S. Representative, tackled a wide range of topics that ranged from the current state of politics, trade and how small businesses have been left to deal with Trump’s trade policies.

“The country that your children grew up in will be different than the country that you grew up in,” Mulvaney said. “Both parties are now protectionist. There are still some pro-trade Republicans, but not very many.”

Previous Democratic administrations often relied on Republican votes to push through tariff-free trade deals.

“Democrats are all now against tariffs because Donald Trump is for them,” Mulvaney said. “I can assure you, they like tariffs just as much as they did before. That is a permanent change. It’s going to be a long-term change.”

Kirk said voters hold the key if they seek change.

“I always tell people, ‘If you want to know who’s responsible for the brokenness of our politics, look in the mirror. Stop voting for jerks. It’s not that hard,’” Kirk said to laughter.

The future of the American economy remains unclear, he added.

“The one thing everybody in this room has in common is that our parents told us: ‘You’re going to have it better than me,’ ” Kirk said. “Can we confidently say that to our kids? So the anxiety is, where are the jobs going to come from?

“We’ve got to sell more planes, more of what we manufacture, more of what we create and more of what we grow to the world. If you put it like that, I’m convinced Americans say yes.”

Both Mulvaney and Kirk agreed that a legal challenge financed by the conservative Charles and David Koch brothers against Trump’s tariffs will probably succeed at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the meantime, Heck asked the panelists if any particular economic sector will suffer more as long as the tariffs persist.

“Sadly, agriculture is the tip of the spear. It’s the one place we win,” Kirk said. “There are not many countries that have the ability to not only feed themselves but also have enough to feed the world. Other countries know that.”

Kirk said farmers are struggling because the U.S. has 250,000 fewer migrant farmworkers who provide the labor that brings crops to the marketplace.

When trade wars erupt, other economies “always hit the poor farmers first. The most common denominator of every elected official in the world is they represent the farmer,” he continued. “They’re paying a huge price for this.”

Mulvaney agreed, noting that China has not bought any U.S.-grown soybeans this year after purchasing about $50 billion worth in 2024.

The former director of the Office of Management and Budget relayed the story from 2017 after he wrote a budget that was one of the most conservative dating back to former President Ronald Reagan.

After finishing, Mulvaney said he got called to a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. When he arrived, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell was sitting across from Trump.

“Now I know I’m in a lot of trouble,” Mulvaney told the crowd. Trump then told McConnell to tell Mulvaney what they had just discussed.

McConnell noted that Mulvaney wasn’t elected. Trump was.

“He said, ‘No one has ever lost his or her job in this town for spending too much money,’ Mulvaney said of McConnell. ‘They have lost it for not spending enough.’ ”

Mulvaney said Trump then literally threw his budget in the trash “and we spent money faster than Barack Obama.”

“Why? Because that’s what’s voters want,” he said. “Some of them say they want us to spend less, but they really don’t. That’s just the way the country works.”

“Government does not lead, it follows,” Mulvaney continued. “And, right now it’s following the way the country wants to govern.”