Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley drew a sharp line Monday between her views on trade and the tariffs proposed by her rival, Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
“This is a man who now wants to go and put 10% tariffs across the board, raising taxes on every single American. Think about that for a second,” Haley said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Trump has repeatedly proposed the idea of a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods.
“What Donald Trump’s about to do, is he’s going to raise every household’s expenses by $2,600 a year,” said Haley, citing a figure from the fiscally conservative National Taxpayers Union.
“It’s going to raise the cost of anything from baby strollers to appliances, under Donald Trump,” she added. “Middle class families can’t afford that.”
In addition to his proposed 10% universal tariff, Trump has also privately discussed a massive 60% tariff that would be applied to all imports from China, The Washington Post reports.
Over the weekend, Trump suggested tariffs were the way to force automobile manufacturers to build cars in the United States.
“[I] would require China, and other countries, through TARIFFS, or otherwise, to build plants here, with our workers,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Experts say the impacts of the scale of trade wars that Trump is proposing are difficult to quantify.
“They can’t model that, because they don’t really understand what the second and third order effects are, and more importantly, they don’t grasp that Trump isn’t talking about a 10% tariff just because it’s a 10% tariff,” Michael Every, a global strategist at Rabobank. recently told CNBC.
Trump “is talking about structurally breaking the global system, by hook or by crook, to basically re-industrialize the U.S. … putting up a barrier between it and the rest of the world so it’s cheap to produce in America and more expensive to produce everywhere else if you’re importing into America,” said Every.
The trade war that Trump waged with China while he was in office is estimated to have cost 245,000 American jobs, according to the U.S.-China Business Council.
This, and Trump’s proposed tariffs if he were elected to a second term have left many Wall Street investors deeply concerned about what the global economy would look like in a second Trump administration.
These concerns have accrued to Haley’s benefit, and she has consistently enjoyed backing from Wall Street donors.
Haley was under pressure from these donors to win in New Hampshire after her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. Last week, CNBC reported that LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman did not plan to give more money to Haley after her second place finish in New Hampshire.
But this has not slowed down Haley’s fundraising juggernaut. The Haley campaign says it raised $4 million just last week, a massive haul for the former U.N. ambassador’s presidential bid.
The campaign also has more than 10 high-dollar fundraisers scheduled in the coming weeks, several of which will be in New York City on Monday and Tuesday.
The hosts of a Tuesday night event include Home Depot Co-Founder Ken Langone and billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller.
Haley also vowed to stay in the race and said her campaign would keep building up to the Feb. 24 South Carolina primary in her home state.
“It’s far from over. And what I’ll tell you is, look, (Trump) has been literally unhinged ever since I got 43% of the vote in New Hampshire,” Haley told CNBC.