JD Vance is telling Americans living paycheck to paycheck that the pain from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs will all be worth it—at some point.
Trump’s rollout of the highest U.S. tariffs in a century has already inflicted damage on the U.S. economy—sending stocks plummeting and piling pressure on the dollar Thursday, and fueling fears of a looming global recession. Amid the chaos, his vice president used a Fox News appearance to deliver a message to anxious voters: In short, suck it up.
In a Fox & Friends interview Thursday morning, co-host Lawrence Jones claimed there are “a lot of MAGA folks” cheering Trump on, “especially when he takes it to other countries.”
“But I also know people that come from our background—they’re living paycheck to paycheck,” Jones said. “And they want to do the patriotic duty of taking it to these other countries. But it’s going to hit them a little bit, they feel.”
He asked Vance what he could tell Americans who “just can’t afford an extra three dollars here and there” and how the government will help those people. “Will cost go up at some point?” Jones asked. “Will this just be temporary? Are we talking three months or six months?”
Vance, who is now worth an estimated $10 million thanks in part to his memoir about his Rust Belt upbringing, answered by indicating that he could relate to those who are fearful.
“I grew up in a family that often did live paycheck to paycheck, and we know a lot of Americans are worried,” Vance said. “So we are fighting very hard to bring prices down. We’re going to have the biggest deregulation in the history of this country.”
“What I’d ask folks to appreciate here is that we are not going to fix things overnight,” Vance added. “Joe Biden left us—this is not an exaggeration, Lawrence—with the largest peacetime debt and deficit in the history of the United States of America, with sky-high interest rates. You don’t fix that stuff overnight.”
Vance did not explain how he thinks igniting a global trade war would “fix” those issues, saying only that the Trump administration believes “that if we pursue the right deregulation, we pursue those energy cost reducing policies, yes, people are going to see it in their pocketbook.”
“They’re also gonna benefit from the fact that foreign countries can’t take advantage of us anymore,” Vance added. “That means their jobs are going to be more secure.”
Trump announced a 10 percent tariff on all imported goods to the U.S. on Wednesday, which he touted as America’s “Liberation Day,” even extending the levy to uninhabited islands with no economic activity. He also unveiled higher rates for some 60 countries, and many nations are now exploring how to retaliate.
The new American tariffs will be paid by companies importing the targeted goods into the U.S., costs that are likely to be passed on in many cases to consumers and manufacturers. Economists have consequently increased their expectations of higher inflation in 2025.
In his interview, Vance acknowledged that the Trump administration is implementing “a total shift in the way that we’ve done economic policy in the United States of America.”
“But it was necessary,” he said. “So yeah, we’re going to cut your taxes. You’re going to have more money in your pocket, and that’s of course going to help you deal with the cost of inflation.”
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DAILY BEAST
