Walz slams Trump tariffs as White House defends trade war policies
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On Tuesday, the White House defended President Donald Trump’s trade and tariff policies as Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., chastised the President for prioritizing a “ridiculous trade war” against U.S. farmers during the Democratic National Committee’s press call.
“If the American people cared about the opinions of the idiot buffoon known as Tim Walz, they wouldn’t have resoundingly rejected him and his loud-mouthed running mate on Election Day in November,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told Fox News Digital.
Trump last week began imposing additional 100% tariffs on China starting Nov. 1, with the U.S. and China locked in a brutal trade war since the president declared April 2 as “Liberation Day” and sought reciprocal tariff deals around the world. On Tuesday, Walz said global competition was keeping prices low in America and that Trump’s tariffs on China were increasing costs for US farmers.
“All of this is threatened by Donald Trump’s ego,” Walz said. “This is a ridiculous trade war… You can’t get any worse than writing this and putting these tariffs, putting our farmers at risk, putting our family farms at risk, going back and bailing out Argentina, which is taking another country and its markets.”
Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., on Oct. 7, 2025, in St. He walks near the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. (Abbie Parr/AP Photo)
TRUMP’S DEADLINE ON SECONDARY TARIFFS IS COMING; US-RUSSIA RELATIONS ARE IN THE BALANCE
China stopped purchases American soybean This spring, Trump’s tariffs are being retaliated against as a way to gain leverage in trade talks by shifting purchases away from U.S. producers to countries like Brazil and Argentina. China is the world’s leading importer of soybeans, accounting for 61% of the world’s soybean trade in the last five marketing years, according to data from the American Soybean Association.
TRUMP’S GLOBAL RESET OF TRADE RELATIONS WILL BE IN FOCUS THIS WEEK
On Tuesday, Walz criticized Trump’s tariffs for forcing U.S. farmers to lose out on exports to China.
“It took decades to build these markets,” Walz said. “China didn’t just sign one-year contracts with Argentina. They signed some of these for periods as long as ten years, and it will take us years to get those markets back.”
The White House has relentlessly defended the administration’s “Emancipation Day” tactics as a strategy to level the playing field in the global economy.
“President Trump’s trade and tariff policies reset decades of End-of-America ‘free’ trade policies that have destroyed American industry and hollowed out American communities,” Desai said in a statement on behalf of the White House. he said. “This includes unfairly excluding American farmers from foreign markets, a wrong that President Trump’s historic trade deals with the UK, EU and Japan have righted.”
President Donald Trump during the executive order signing in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on August 25, 2025. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Walz said U.S. exports provide economic stability and that “all of that is at risk” as China chooses to buy goods from Brazil and Argentina.
“Everything Donald Trump does is transactional,” Walz said. “And unfortunately this transaction is supposed to benefit him personally.”
The failed vice presidential candidate blamed Republicans, who he said could “fix this.”
“My God, that is Republican orthodoxy,” Walz said. “Free markets lift all boats, let people compete and let them go. This is capitalism 101. And what we get from it is a command economy with an authoritarian leader who picks and chooses winners and losers. The losers are American producers, America’s rural communities, and consumers.”
Earlier this summer, foreign policy experts criticized Walz for claiming that China could be the voice of “moral authority” following Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leaders.
Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., speaks to delegates at the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention on May 31, 2025 in Columbia, S.C. (Meg Kinnard/AP Photo)
Walz said of the United States’ role in de-escalating tensions in the Middle East: “Now, who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some kind of agreement on this? Who has the moral authority? Who has the ability to do that? Because we are not viewed as a neutral actor, and perhaps we never have been.”
Walz said Americans must face the fact that the “neutral actor” with the “moral authority” to lead negotiations in the Middle East “could be Chinese.”
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The Minnesota Democrat, who is running for a third term as governor next year, criticized Trump’s trade and customs policies on Tuesday just as the president turned away from brokering a ceasefire that led to the release of the remaining living hostages in Gaza.
Fox News Digital’s Eric Revell contributed to this report.
