By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH, was among members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee who pressed a top Trump Administration official on just how far it will go to achieve the goals from tariffs which are right now tearing apart retirement savings on Tuesday.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was asked to attend the annual hearing on the President’s trade agenda.

The annual event came as national and international markets were in a tailspin over tariffs and about the same hour that the Administration announced it would impose new increases to tariffs for China which it said will go into effect tonight at midnight.

The Dow Industrial Average closed down 300 points and volatility continued across most markets under the weight of what some call a trade war started by President Donald Trump.

Hassan told Greer that the “haphazard” acts of imposing tariffs on friend and foe alike are causing huge losses in America’s retirement savings and she pressed him on how far they would go.

She asked him if the Administration would reverse course if the President’s tariffs led to 10 percent inflation.

“Senator, the President is fixed in his purpose,” Greer said. 

“This trade deficit and offshoring and loss of manufacturing jobs has persisted for too long and it’s dangerous,” Greer said, noting it has been 30 years in the making.

She said at what inflation rate “where you guys would reverse course.” Ten percent inflation would be higher than at peak during COVID-19, she noted.

Greer said the most serious inflation was during the Democratic administration during former President Joe Biden’s years.

“When we did tariffs in the first term inflation went down. It’s not going to be a one to one. Inflation is about how much money you are putting in….” Greer said.

Hassan interrupted, “Let’s be really clear that the Trump Administration is here today to say that even if inflation hits American’s pocketbooks at 10 percent because of these tariffs, then the Trump Administration is still going to go charge ahead.”

She then asked Greer if Trump would reverse course if it caused a 50 percent stock market crash that would hurt more than the impacts of the past 10 days on portfolios and retirement savings?

He said the fundamentals of the economy are “so strong” noting the country has added 228,000 jobs and 9,000 additionally in manufacturing.

Hassan said: “So again your answer is even if the stock market crashes 50 percent, which is how much the stock market crashed in the great recession, you are not going to say here today that you would reverse course even if you crashed the stock market and harmed retirement savings as drastically as happened during the great recession in 2007?”

Greer said Hassan’s hypotheticals are not consistent with the history the Trump Administration has seen involving tariffs.

“My hypotheticals are based on the fact that a lot of Americans are looking at their 401ks today and wondering how much of a lifestyle change they are going to have to have or whether they are going to be able to retire when they plan to because of the recklessness and haphazard nature of the Trump Administration’s imposition of tariffs. Nothing was thought out about this. It has been a haphazard and incompetent effort and it is showing,” the New Hampshire senator and former governor said.

In his opening statement, Ambassador Greer said that last week Trump announced a “national emergency” in response to the large and persistent trade deficit that has built up in recent years.

“This deficit is driven in part by non-reciprocal tariffs, trading barriers and other economic policies pursued by our foreign trading partners. The situation is urgent.”

He said Trump imposed the tariffs to address this and they are aimed at achieving reciprocity and reducing the massive trade deficit to recharge production domestically.

He said this is the most important change in U.S. Trade policy since America allowed China to join the World Trade Organization in 2000.

“The American working class, in particular, has suffered concentrated losses from the so-called ‘China shock’ and other adverse effects of past trade policy and the conditions that give rise to this massive trade deficit,” Greer said.

He noted the U.S. lost 5 million manufacturing jobs and 90,000 factories since 1994. 

Former President Biden, he said, left office in January with a $1.2 trillion trade deficit in goods, the largest in the world, ever, he said.

He gave examples of impacts of a loss of manufacturing here which impacted the nation during COVID-19 and other times and compared manufacturing this past year to that during World War II.

He said Trump’s tariff’s strategy is “already bearing fruit.”

“Nearly 50 countries have approached me personally to discuss the President’s new policy and explore how to achieve reciprocity…several such as Argentina, Vietnam, India and Israel have suggested that they will reduce their tariffs and non-tariff barriers in line with the President’s policy,” he said.

“All of this is in the right direction,” he said and indicated he welcomed a dialogue with those like Hassan who disagreed with the administration’s tactics.

“We must move away from an economy that is based solely on government spending in the financial sector and we must become an economy based on producing real goods and services that provide jobs for working class and middle class Americans in their communities. This adjustment may be challenging at times and in a moment of drastic, overdue change I am confident, I am certain that the American people can rise to the challenge as they have done before,” Greer said.