Trump says China 'probably will eat those tariffs'

President Trump said in an interview broadcasting late Tuesday that China “will probably eat those tariffs” when talking about the 145 percent overall tariff on its products.

The president got into a heated back-and-forth with ABC’s Terry Moran when talking about the import tax, with Moran arguing the tariff is going to “raise prices on everything from electronics, to clothing, to building houses.”

“You don’t know that, you don’t know whether or not China’s going to eat it,” Trump cut in at the end of Moran’s statement. 

“That’s mathematics,” Moran said, also cutting in at the end of Trump’s response.

“China probably will eat those tariffs,” Trump replied. “But at 145, they basically can’t do much business with the United States. And, they were making from us a trillion dollars a year, they were ripping us off like nobody’s ever ripped us off.”

Trump’s tariff policy in the first few months of his presidency has rattled markets across the globe, raised economic anxiety and strained relationships with trading partners across the globe.

Chinese officials have gone after the Trump administration’s approach to negotiating tariff policy.

“They make up bargaining chips out of thin air, bully and go back on their words,” Zhao Chenxin, deputy director of China’s main economic planning agency, said Sunday.

Zhao added that the method “makes everyone see one thing more and more clearly, that is the so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’ severely go against historical trends and economic laws, impact international trade rules and order and seriously impair the legitimate rights and interests of countries.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked by reporters at the White House on Monday about trade talks with China. He did not detail the type of talks, if any, Trump’s administration was participating in alongside China but said that the tariffs would cause pain for Beijing instead of the U.S.

“I think that, over time, we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China,” Bessent said.

The Hill has reached out to the White House for further comment and clarification on the president’s comments in the interview.