President Donald Trump鈥檚 tariffs are having an enormous impact on the global economy. And some Republican leaders here in North Carolina are now speaking out against the strategy.
Art Pope is a former member of the North Carolina House, served as budget director under Governor Pat McCrory, and currently sits on the UNC Board of Governors. He founded or co-founded the Civitas Institute and the John Locke Foundation and has been a major donor to numerous Republican candidates over the years.
As the CEO of Variety Wholesalers, Pope owns and operates stores like Roses, Maxway, and Big Lots.
Art Pope spoke to the BBC鈥檚 Julian Marshall about Trump鈥檚 tariffs.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Art Pope: The stock market is only the first blow. You see many Americans losing their investments, their retirement accounts, directly own stock. But not every American owns stock. However, every American buys their clothes, buys their shirts, buy their shoes. So the next blow is going to be when retail prices increase, which will take a couple of weeks to a month for the new Trump tariffs to take place.
So you'll see the price increases in May, June, and then I think you'll see another wave of opposition and concern that President Trump, rather than delivering on reducing the cost of living, is actually increasing the cost.
I think it would be right to describe you as a Ronald Reagan Republican, and I was wondering, how is it that your party has gone from the champions of free trade to one that now advocates tariffs across the board?
It has not gone yet, it is still very much the center of the debate. President Trump, during his first term, pretty much implemented a traditional Republican/Reagan agenda with lower taxes, deregulation, strengthen the family, and he did it with the help of a Republican Congress.
This time, he's gone the opposite direction, but we are just now seeing how clear the break has been. It's not really a break, but opposition.
The tariffs proposed by President Trump and being implemented by him will be one of the largest tax increases we have ever had in America, especially in peacetime. So that is the opposite of the lower taxes that President Reagan and conservatives have supported in the past.
But also he's doing it through executive action rather than through Congress. And Republicans and conservatives believe in the limited government separation of powers between our executive branch and our legislative branch and successfully sued President Biden when he exceeded his authority. So now you've seen litigation already filed over this issue as well.
I've mentioned growing unease within Congress. Why don't Republicans speak up more?
President Trump did come in with a very strong mandate by getting a majority of the popular votes as well as the Electoral College. And he's been very effective in defeating his critics within the Republican Party and Republican primaries. But he's been able to do that because he had the voters鈥� mandate and the voter support because they believed he would lower their cost of living and lower prices.
As we've seen with the decline of the stock market, as I think you will see when prices go up, he will start losing that mandate and losing the political capital, the goodwill he has with Republicans in Congress. So I think you will see more Republicans in Congress step up in opposition to the tariff policy, even while they support President Trump on other policies.
So you seem to be contradicting the members of the Trump administration who tell us that there are good times ahead.
There are not good times ahead. It's been 250 years since we've had growth in the European then the world economy based on free markets and free trade, allowing people to choose for themselves. This type of mercantilism revisited industrial policy, and going back to Smoot-Hawley of the 1930s, has always ended in disaster.
I think President Trump and his administration are acting in good faith. I think they're very wrong. And the economy, the real world of price increases and lost jobs, will show that.
