Is America mad at Canada? Kevin Hassett has the answer

Absolutely, Maria. You said it very, very well, but really I could think that the president has two priorities. The first priority is what you just said about making sure that we never again face a world where a foreign government could potentially upset our supply chain in a way that would shut down American industry. But the other thing is that I think it's more interesting to me is that he has convinced the American people correctly that they're better off if they buy American. If they buy American, they're going to get a better product. If they buy American, they're going to help the communities around them. They're going to help their friends and neighbors who have jobs. And so I think that we're seeing a big shift in demand from Americans for American products. And you see it best in the data. Of course, that's the best place to see stuff. The CEA put out a report this week as you know that said that the prices of imported goods into the US have actually gone down despite the fact that we've raised hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs. I think the best explanation for that is people are beginning to recognize the harm that happens when other countries dump their stuff in the US and put Americans out of work. And so I think that one of the reasons why you're seeing the letters and the president raising the rates and putting more pressure on getting better deals that he's seen is that we put a lot of tariffs in place already and the results have been fantastic.

Right. The CBO outlook that we got just a couple of weeks ago before the big beautiful bill was voted on says that with current policies, we're looking at about 3 trillion in tariff revenue over the next 10 years. And so we're definitely on a path to completely revise the way the American fiscal system works. And I add one other thing about the way people cover this. A lot of people are like, why are you mad at Canada? Why are you mad at these guys? Why are you mad at those guys? Now, for sure, there have been some countries that have been dumping things in the US in a very harmful way. But in the end, what the president's doing is putting America first. These tariffs are an America First policy. It's really about us more than it's about them. We're going to have a much more efficient tax code, a much bigger, faster, better economy because of the complete portfolio of policies that the president's putting into place.

Well, I think that the clarity is very clearly there's a date on it. The president has made it clear that in early August that's it. We're either going to have deals or we're going to have the tariffs that he put into the letters. And that puts a lot of pressure on everybody to come to the table one last time and give us everything they got. And I can tell you, I can report that everybody is exactly doing that. And so I would guess that before the August recess when Congress goes home and everybody starts to celebrate their state fairs and so on, by then I think there'll be a heck of a lot of clarity.