- Donald Trump’s planned tariffs as president threaten to ruin Christmas next year, Mark Cuban said.
- The “Shark Tank” star said a 60% tariff on Chinese imports would raise the price of presents.
- Kamala Harris told Cuban that Trump’s economic plans would fuel inflation and cause a recession.
Christmas will be ruined next year if Donald Trump is reelected president and enacts his tariff plans, Mark Cuban said.
“To me, I think Donald Trump is the Grinch that stole Christmas,” Cuban told Vice President Kamala Harris in a conversation uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday.
“This time next year, we’re going to be thinking about Christmas presents for all of our kids, and if he puts a 60% tariff on everything from China, those prices are going up,” the “Shark Tank” investor and tech billionaire told the Democratic presidential candidate.
“And now all of a sudden, your vision of everything you wanted to have for your kids at Christmas is gone. Donald Trump just crushed it,” added Cuban, a vocal Trump critic and Harris supporter.
Trump, the Republican candidate in November’s election, has proposed imposing a 60% tariff on all imports from China, and tariffs of 10% or 20% on imports from all other countries.
The Tax Foundation estimates the weighted-average tariff rate on Chinese imports to the US is about 10%. In a recent analysis, the non-partisan think tank found that imposing a broad 20% tariff and raising tariffs on Chinese imports to 60% could cost a typical household more than $2,600 a year, or about 4.1% of its annual income.
The Budget Lab at Yale estimated this month that a broad 10% tariff and a 60% China tariff could raise consumer prices by 1.4% to 5.1%. The non-partisan policy research center said that could cost households between $1,900 and $7,600 in average disposable income, before accounting for substitution or the Federal Reserve’s response to prices jumping.
Harris told Cuban that Trump doesn’t pay sufficient attention to the details: “He is applying a machete when a scalpel is what’s necessary.”
She also contrasted their overall economic plans, saying hers would bolster the economy while Trump’s would “incite inflation and invite a recession by the middle of next year.”
