Criticizing the Donald Trump administration over its trade policy with China, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday said that the former president ignited trade wars and sold American chips to China, which she argued contributed to the modernization of China’s military.
During the presidential debate conducted by ABC News, Harris emphasized that the U.S. policy toward China should be focused on winning the competition for the 21st century. She stressed that this involves strengthening relationships with U.S. allies and investing in American-based technology.
In response to a question about whether Americans can afford higher prices due to tariffs, Harris said, “The Trump administration resulted in one of the highest trade deficits in American history. He invited trade wars. You want to talk about his deal with China? What he ended up doing during his presidency was selling American chips to China, which helped them improve and modernize their military.”
“He basically sold us out. A policy regarding China should focus on ensuring that the United States wins the competition for the 21st century, which means paying attention to what that requires—focusing on relationships with our allies, investing in American-based technology so that we win the race in areas like AI and quantum computing, and supporting America’s workforce so that we don’t end up on the short end of the stick when it comes to workers’ rights,” Harris added.
Harris further criticized Trump, claiming he thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping despite knowing Xi was responsible for the lack of transparency regarding the origins of COVID-19.
“But what Donald Trump did with COVID—let’s talk about that. He actually thanked President Xi for his actions regarding COVID. Look at his tweet: ‘Thank you, Mr. Xi!’ when we know Xi was responsible for withholding information and not being transparent about the origins of COVID,” Harris said.
Trump responded by asserting that Americans did not have to pay higher prices due to tariffs, arguing that it was China and other nations that bore the costs. He also pointed out that the Biden administration continued to enforce the tariffs he had put in place during his presidency.
Trump also went on to criticize the Biden administration for overseeing the highest inflation in recent history, calling it “the worst period of time.”
“They’re not going to face higher prices. What’s going to happen is that China and all the other countries that have been taking advantage of us for years will face higher costs. I was the only president to charge China, and they paid us hundreds of billions of dollars, as did other countries,” Trump said.
“And if Harris doesn’t like those tariffs, they should have immediately cut them when they took office. But those tariffs have been in place for three and a half years under their administration, and we’re still bringing in billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. Under my administration, we had virtually no inflation. Now, they’ve overseen the highest inflation, possibly in the history of our country. People can’t even afford basic items like cereal, bacon, and eggs. Our people are suffering under what they’ve done,” he added.