AOC: This Is When 'We're Going To Really Start Feeling The Consequences Of These Tariffs'

Forbes Breaking News

At her town hall event in Queens, New York, on Friday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) discussed the impact of tariffs.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Liam. I just moved, like, last month.

00:03Welcome!

00:04I have a compound question here.

00:06Two really big issues, tariffs and the F1 deportations,

00:11both kind of related in the fact of how are you going to keep Trump

00:15as a crazy person in the White House that can't actually affect me?

00:18Kind of like the people on the, like, A subway trains that kind of rant,

00:23but, like, over there and not near me.

00:25Sorry, could you repeat? I'm sorry, folks.

00:30Sometimes it's a little hard.

00:31Yeah, can you?

00:32Oh, sorry.

00:33It was really about how, like, all these tariff problems

00:37and stuff that started affecting in the F1 deportations,

00:42how you, like, combating Trump's craziness with that.

00:47Yes. Okay.

00:49And you said combating his craziness with fact, you said?

00:54In all of those situations.

00:55How are you combating Trump's craziness, tariffs, F1 visas?

00:59So, a lot of this has to do, I think,

01:03there's different kinds of ways to approach Trump.

01:05I think a lot of times people have seen,

01:08perhaps felt the Democratic Party being a little on its back foot

01:14in the Trump administration.

01:18And I think it's because there are multiple ways to address Trump.

01:21And oftentimes there are a lot of people who think that we need to lean on institutions

01:29and rules and, like, processes in order to roll back and resist everything that the Trump administration is doing.

01:41And it's not to say that those things should be abandoned because sometimes we do win.

01:46Like, we are able to turn some of these things over in court.

01:49We are able to roll some of these things back.

01:51But also, we can't rely on rules with a rule breaker.

01:56And it means that we have to get creative.

02:03And it really does mean that with a reality TV show president, that public opinion matters.

02:12Public opinion really does matter.

02:14And when we're able to be on our offense with some of these folks

02:17and we're able to turn the public tide,

02:21then we are sometimes able to get and secure some changes

02:25and some rollbacks in what they are planning to do.

02:28And so I think we need to have, and this has been to our point here

02:33and what we did six years ago, both an inside and outside strategy.

02:38And sometimes I think existing, it has leaned too much on an inside strategy

02:42with not enough of an outside strategy.

02:45And it's very important that we be organizing and educating people right now.

02:48So on the point with tariffs, these tariffs are going to start to be,

02:53I want you all to know, we're going to really start feeling the consequences of these tariffs

02:58in about two to four weeks from now.

03:01Because in terms of our supply chain,

03:04and we all now are much more familiar with supply chains after COVID,

03:08in terms of supply chains, when these tariffs are announced

03:12and when they start to become enacted,

03:13we don't feel the issues in our supply chain the next day.

03:18It's when everything that was from the ports coming into the ports

03:21the day that it was announced, when that gets to our shelves

03:25and after they've been bought up,

03:27it's about what is happening at the ports the day after and a couple weeks after.

03:31And as we've seen, maybe some of you have seen,

03:33some of these ports are starting to kind of empty out a little bit.

03:37And so I don't say this so like people start stealing all the toilet paper from Costco.

03:43Please do not do that.

03:45But it's to say that things may get more expensive.

03:50And we're going to feel those changes in prices, not in an immediate sense,

03:55although some people may have already seen some prices go up.

03:58But we're going to really start feeling that in the next two to four weeks.

04:02And when public opinion,

04:04it's very important that we continue beating the drum,

04:09that these price increases are because of the tariffs,

04:13that the tariffs are doing this.

04:15Because what they don't want is for people to connect,

04:19A, to be aware that prices are going up,

04:22and B, to connect the dots that the prices are going up because of those tariffs.

04:26And so we need to be really sharing that information.

04:29I, of course, will be doing that in a public sense.

04:32But in an era of disinformation and misinformation,

04:36and there are plenty of folks that may not believe it when I'm saying it,

04:41but they believe stuff when their friends are telling them.

04:44And so our social ties and our social connections and personal relationships

04:48in transmitting information are now more important than ever.

04:52Because there are lots of folks that maybe won't believe CNN,

04:57or they may not believe, you know, TV,

04:59but they will believe when you say something,

05:02or when you reamplify some information.

05:05And so peer-to-peer information sharing is very important.

05:08And in fact, I think that's a big part of why they are rolling back these Medicaid cuts

05:13and delaying these Medicaid cuts.

05:15Because Trump is so much on the defense with his tariff disaster

05:20that now he knows that he can't take the hit on cutting Medicaid too.

05:26And so I think that we have to just continue to lay on him with respect to that.

05:30In terms of our community, and in terms of immigration,

05:35the Know Your Rights seminars and the Know Your Rights information

05:38has been very, very effective in protecting our community

05:42from kind of these ice raids that are trying to skirt the law

05:48and not fulfill their legal obligations.

05:52When our community knows their rights,

05:54and when everyday people know their rights,

05:57then we actually see some of that activity reduce in our own backyard

06:01because they know that they can't just take people as easily.

06:05They can't take an educated community as easily

06:08as they can take one that is not as educated.

06:11And so we have lots of Know Your Rights materials.

06:14If anyone here would like them or would like to distribute them,

06:18we have flyers available.

06:19We have them in digital versions for you to print out.

06:21We have them in physical versions for you to take home.

06:24But feel free to request those, and we're happy to provide them.

06:31Our next question is,

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