'We're All Dead': GOP Senator Reacts To Trump Tariffs

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Huff Post

Apr 3, 2025, 02:55 PM EDT


Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) wasn’t concerned enough about President Donald Trump’s steep international tariffs to vote against them Wednesday — like some of his GOP colleagues — but did scold staunch supporters of the policy with a dire warning to multiple outlets. “In the long run, we’re all dead,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju on Capitol Hill for “The Lead with Jake Tapper” on Wednesday. “Short run matters, too. Nobody knows what the impact of these tariffs is going to be on the economy.”

Trump dubbed April 2 “Liberation Day” and announced a sweeping 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the U.S., with levies on dozens of countries set even higher. He repeated his false claim Wednesday that foreign nations, rather than Americans, will shoulder the costs.

Only four Republican senators Wednesday — Rand Paul (Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Susan Collins (Maine) — joined Democrats in voting against the emergency powers Trump is using to impose a 25% tariff against Canada. Kennedy did not, but reiterated his concerns in a Newsmax interview later that day.

“What the president is saying is, if you want to sell stuff to Americans, move your business to America and hire Americans and contribute to our economy, don’t just sell stuff,” he told anchor Rob Schmitt. “In the long run, he’s right. But in the long run, we’re all dead.”

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-kennedy-reacts-to-donald-trump-tariffs_n_67eea442e4b092af721e0beb

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These dumbasses think that a manufacturing plant can "instantly" appear in a few months or a year. It may take them a year or two just to plan/design something like that, then start costing it out and getting the contracts together. So you are looking maybe 3 - 5 years if you are lucky.

And this -

“What the president is saying is, if you want to sell stuff to Americans, move your business to America and hire Americans and contribute to our economy, don’t just sell stuff,”

That's NOT in any part of the GOP business mantra that emphasizes "free trade". You people brainwashed everyone into demanding and implementing "free trade", and people warned you about all the "outsourcing" and "offshoring", but you people ignored that because "cheap labor" enhanced the "bottom line" (and profits).

[Autumn]

1. This is all on you and your fucking republican party. You will be fine

you wothless piece of shit. The people and this piece of shit country won't be

Fuck off and die.

[Phoenix61]

2. Manufacturers don't pay the tariffs. Why would they

spend money on a factory for no reason?

[LudwigPastorius]

22. Yep, they're going to play the wait-until-he's-gone card.

That way, they won't have to eat an enormous capital outlay in four years.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Also these variables:

1. Banks may not want to take on the risk of loaning money for a proposition of building a new factory in the U.S. when tariffs are likely to be gone in four years.

2. The shareholders may want to sell their holdings because they would not necessarily approve of the corporation(s) taking on such an endeavor, especially a risky venture.

[DaBronx]

28. Excellent points

[ananda]

4. That Kennedy is a true malignant idiot!

Nobody knows... really?

Anyone with half a brain knows tariffs are economy killers,
which ultimately of course also kills people.

[DaBronx]

29. I had the same reaction

He’s a bleating sheep.

🐑

[Basso8vb]

5. I'm hoping for a massive asteroid impact more than ever now.

[DaBronx]

31. Here you go

☄️

[Kablooie]

6. Yeah! They need to grow their coffee and bananas right here in good ol' Amurika!

[Norrrm]

9. Yeah! Plenty of good farmland up in N Dakota.

Won't need Trump's socialist payments, either.

[BidenRocks]

10. Tariffs on Madagascar

There goes the cost of vanilla.

[Beachnutt]

7. Cornpone Kennedy

running his corn hole again.

[BidenRocks]

8. We used to have a selection of products to buy.

Now it will be single source Made in America expensive.
Fuck you. I will do without!
Fuck you Lee Greenwood!
I an NOT proud to be an American.

[mahina]

11. I wish he meant what I thought he meant when I read the headline, but no

[travelingthrulife]

12. You own it Kennedy.

[republianmushroom]

13. Just being dead is to damn easy on them.

[turbinetree]

14. Hey Jonnie can you recall what happened in the impeachment hearings...............

maybe you should start there..............dumb 💩........and look around at the votes or better yet go look them up in the records......

[EndlessWire]

15. I wonder how they felt

about being scolded for supporting the tariffs by a guy who voted to support the tariffs?

[dchill]

16. Foghorn Leghorn has more credibility.

More intellectual heft.

[Cheezoholic]

17. This is "Pandemic" economics all over again. It's the same schtick without killing a million people... yet n/t

[retread]

18. "Nobody knows what the impact of these tariffs is going to be on the economy." He is either 1. extremely stupid or 2. a

baldfaced liar or 3. both. Empirical evidence points to number 3.

[paulkienitz]

19. alarming thought: if he gets his way, the dollar may no longer be the world reserve currency

I'm no expert, but it's my understanding that the dollar can only hold its position of privilege as the world reserve currency in circumstances where we run a substantial trade deficit -- that is, we import goods and export dollars. That deal is an amazing privilege to be offered -- we literally get manufactured goods for nothing, just by printing extra currency for the purpose... but the whole point of tariffs is, as Senator Kennedy points out, to force manufacturing to move back here so we don't import stuff anymore. If they succeed, I suspect that the reserve currency role of the dollar will not be sustainable, and eventually it will come down to a contest between the Euro and the Yuan (CNY) to take over that role. That means that America will be poorer unless it can start competing as an exporter, in a world where every developing country is trying to compete as an exporter.

[Dr. T]

20. No one seems to remember why

nearly all U.S. manufacturing moved off-shore in the first place.

It started in the 80's. Large companies called them LCC's, low cost countries. They were able to cut manufacturing costs by moving to these LCC's, but the price of their products remained the same. The companies pocketed the difference, making their shareholders very happy.

The Orange Idiot cannot put the genie back in the bottle with his tariffs. None of them will be moving their manufacturing operations back to the U.S.

[thought crime]

26. But some companies will say they are moving manufacturing back

with no real intention to do so. But that's all trump needs.

[FakeNoose]

40. General Electric was one of the first multi-national corporations to do it

When the American manufacturers all saw how GE was cleaning up profits on CHEAP-O foreign labor, they all followed suit.
Plus Uncle Sam gave them big tax breaks for off-shoring.

[Dr. T]

41. GE was the inspiration for my post.

I worked at GE Medical Systems from the early 80's until the mid-2000's. I saw it unfold from a ringside seat.

After they laid me off, I went to work at a local healthcare system, servicing the equipment I once helped produce. I ended up costing GE more in service contracts than what they were paying me when I worked on the manufacturing floor.

[Mblaze]

21. Ronald Reagan was a total free trader

The Heritage Foundation labeled NAFTA "Ronald Reagan's Dream" and Republicans were behind him and pushed it hard. Now they run away from it and blame the Dems. Today, they allow Trump to lie about and renege upon the trade agreement that was negotiated by him and signed in his own ECG scrawl. They parrot Trump's lies and still blame the Dems.

Do Republicans even know their history or are they all hopelessly sucked up into the Trump bizzaro-world vortex?

[Justice matters.]

23. There are actually 8.6 million jobs openings that remain open due to...

a big shortage of qualified workers to occupy these positions.

There are only 6.8 million unemployed and approximately 10,000 Boomers leave their job to transition into retirement each and every new day.

Among the actual 6.8 million unemployed, a sh*t ton of them are literally illiterate and are very bad at counting numbers (a LOT of them are stupid magats who keep whining about everything but still watch faux noise and newsmin). There are next to zero chance they will ever be successfully trained on the job to occupy any of these high-education levels required to occupy these jobs, new or existing).

For factories to spruce up in 5 to 10 years, where are they going to find the workforce they'll need when the dump maladministration clamps down on immigration from non-white dominant countries??

[BurnDoubt]

24. Not to worry...

Edolph is going to chip all the workforce and their brains will default to Edolph's code and everything will be just Peachy! Good thing we killed the Dept of Education... massive savings!!! Even children will be able to make their contribution to the Greatification when we don't have to teach them anything, and controlling their thoughts will lead to a much more docile and productive population. Not to worry. It's been taken care of. You're Welcome!!!

[mathematic]

25. This is an egregiously bad headline since he's quoting Keynes' criticism of overusing long term models in policymaking

Also, it wasn't Republicans that "brainwashed" anybody about free trade. If anyone, it was David Ricardo when he described comparative advantage over 200 years ago. Unfortunately, this was a few decades after the American Revolution and so Americans, who learn American colonial history every year for a decade when they're children, end up thinking that what the British did in the 1700s is how you're supposed to organize a national economy.

[Hassler]

27. I wish. Include Don Old McKinley and it

It's a red letter day.

[Inkey]

30. Remember Foxconn ?

It was going to use its factory to turn
Wisconsin's economy around.

[Orrex]

32. It's always a shame when they speak metaphorically

[Layzeebeaver]

33. if globalisation is the "Cat", and de-globalization is the "Bag"...

Then the cat has already gotten out of and eaten the bag. There is no going back.

Free movement of capital and restricted movement of people if the ultimate goal.

Keep low cost labour in it's place of birth. Let the capital roam free in the hand of the ultra-rich.

[sakabatou]

34. Oh, so NOW they notice the face eating leopards

[Paladin]

35. In both the long and short terms, Sen. John Kennedy remains a clueless shithead. (nt)

[twodogsbarking]

36. He is a real MF. Not stupid but plays the part. MF

[AllyCat]

37. From John's lips to god's ears.

I hope they all croak.

[azureblue]

38. 'We're All Dead':

Good. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of crooks and liars.

[Grins]

39. "Nobody knows...". Shouldn't you have to know that before acting?

Imagine a CEO saying that to shareholders over a major investment.

[Bengus81]

42. I'm all for that asshat Kennedy dying.....make it soon please