Harris: Trump ‘betrayed a lot of people’ with trade policies

Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.), a Democratic White House hopeful, said in an interview broadcast Sunday that President Trump “betrayed a lot of people” with his trade policies, which she said are motivated by his “fragile ego.”

“There are people who voted for him for a variety of reasons. And a lot of it had to do with the promises he made, which he has not delivered on because they were false promises. And he betrayed a lot of people,” Harris told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd on NBC during a campaign swing through Iowa.

{mosads}“He came in saying he was going to help working families, everyone from farmers to auto workers … There are farmers, a lot of farmers, who are looking at bankruptcy because of his so-called trade policy, that was trade policy by tweet, motivated by a fragile ego, that was unilateral action that has resulted in farmers in Iowa looking at bankruptcy because they’ve got soybeans rotting in bins,” she said.

“Why? Because they cultivated a market over at least the last ten years in China. And that’s been cut off for them,” she added.

Trump said on Friday that he was not ready to strike a trade deal with China.

“We are talking to China. We are not ready to make a deal, but we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he departed for a fundraiser in New York. “They want to make a deal. I’m not ready to make a deal.”

Trump recently said he would impose a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports to the United States starting Sept. 1. The Trump administration had already imposed a 25 percent tariff on a separate $250 billion of imports from China.

China responded by weakening its currency, adding further volatility to financial markets. The world’s second-largest economy has also moved to block purchases of U.S. agricultural goods.

Trade talks are scheduled to resume in September, but Trump also hinted on Friday that the talks aren’t guaranteed to take place as planned.

Harris on NBC also said that hundreds of thousands of auto workers “are looking at the potential of no job by the end of the year.”

“He betrayed people,” she added, referring to Trump.

“And the American people are smarter than to go for all of the flash that he tweets all the time. And look at the fact that not only on trade policy, but this tax bill that benefits the top 1 percent and the biggest corporations of America, that this guy, he betrayed them. And I know that the American people are smarter than to go for the okie doke.”