Here’s Schumer In 2005 Saying Big Tariffs On China Needed…

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

In 2005, Chuck Schumer passionately advocated for a 27.5 percent tariff on China, calling their trade policies unfair and saying it had to end.

He was saying the exact same thing Trump is saying now, but ultimately the Democrats under Obama and Biden did nothing about it.

Schumer urged that such a large tariff on Chinese goods “says to the Chinese that their unfair trade policies have got to end. The Chinese have enjoyed a huge trade surplus with the U.S. Every year it gets larger and larger.”

Archive footage of Schumer passionately advocating for tariffs on China, calling their trade policies “unfair” & saying it had to end. He’d joined forces with Lindsey Graham to introduce a ‘China Free Trade Bill’ in 2005. Now Trump is actually doing this, it’s bad. What changed? pic.twitter.com/JT9vsGbXdl

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) April 7, 2025

Schumer had joined forces with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to introduce a ‘China Free Trade Bill’

The rest of what Schumer said:

“Much of that trade surplus is because the Chinese don’t play fair. They don’t let our goods into their country. I can tell you company after company in New York who cannot sell goods in China or can only sell them under impossible conditions.”

“The Chinese make no effort to prevent the ripping off of our intellectual property. These are our crown jewels. The thinking. The great creativity. The great entrepreneurialness of the American business community is just taken, and they shrug their shoulders.”

“And worse of all, the Chinese pile on and add unfair rules that violate free trade. And at the top of that list is the fact that the Chinese peg their currency abnormally low, so their exports get a 27 precent advantage here in the U.S. and our imports get a 27 percent disadvantage when sold in China. Every tenet of free trade, if you believe in it, says they should not peg their currency.”

“What does this mean for America? It means a huge job loss. We have suffered dramatically in manufacturing jobs, service jobs, and other jobs. It means we have a huge trade deficit. It means the dollar sinks to abysmally low levels, threatening our wealth, and it creates chaos in the whole world trading system.”

“We are fed up, Mr. President. How can we stand by as millions of American workers lose their jobs? As thousands of American companies can’t compete fairly? As our country as a whole has wealth drained from it?”

“What we seek is fairness in trade. The Chinese do not play by the rules. We have talked and talked and talked to them. The time for action is now. If not now, when? If not us, who? Millions of American workers and thousands of American businesses look to us to set things right, and today, by passing the Schumer-Graham amendment, we can do that.”

Schumer didn’t follow through on his tough talk and during Trump’s first term he even criticised the President for not being harsh enough on China, urging “Based on his campaign rhetoric you’d think President Trump would be tougher as China steals our family jewels.”

You have to see this to believe it.

October, 2017. Chuck Schumer slams Trump for not yet keeping his campaign promise to retaliate against China for its unfair trade practices.

“Based on his campaign rhetoric you’d think President Trump would be tougher as China steals our… pic.twitter.com/kTCyNfHf7m

— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 7, 2025

Indeed, Democrats barely stopped talking about this subject. Here’s a coked up Joe Biden before the dementia kicked in:

2006. Joe Biden on China: “Guess what, they own us.”

We have a chance to change that now.pic.twitter.com/nFxbExjqfs

— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 7, 2025

And here’s Bernie Sanders in 2015 when he was an independent:

2015. Bernie Sanders on our job-killing trade deals and the need to renegotiate them.

This may be one of the finest speeches of his career. Sanders calls out Democrats, Republicans and economic experts who promised that past trade deals would be good for Americans.

Speeches… pic.twitter.com/OAcHessqkU

— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 7, 2025

2015. Bernie Sanders: Most of our trade agreements were written by corporate America and Wall Street and need to be renegotiated. pic.twitter.com/1sS6BGZ4Lk

— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 6, 2025

He was still saying this as recently as 2019:

2019. Bernie Sanders: Fair trade, not unfettered free trade. Tariffs? Absolutely. pic.twitter.com/jVhMlCQe1o

— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 7, 2025

Last week we highlighted how Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders all passionately advocated for heavy tariffs on China.

What changed?

As we noted earlier, President Trump is forging ahead with an additional 34 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and has threatened to add another 50 percent if China refuses to withdraw retaliatory tariffs of 34 percent on US goods.

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