John Thune Asked Point Blank Why It Makes Sense To 'Threaten' Allies Like Japan, South Korea With Tariffs

At a Senate Republican press briefing on Wednesday, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) spoke about tariffs on Japan and South Korea.

Transcript

00:00reconciliation. Japan and South Korea are two of our most important security and trade partners.

00:07In fact, we have trade agreements with both of them in technology and agriculture. Why does it

00:13make sense to threaten these two important allies with a 25 percent terror? Well, I mean, I think

00:19we've made great headway. I was in both Japan and South Korea last August with Bill Hagerty,

00:24who was the ambassador to Japan in the first Trump administration. And there were a lot of

00:30conversations around creating a trilateral trade agreement where our countries would all have an

00:36open and fair trading process. I think notwithstanding the progress that we've made, and I can speak from

00:42personal experience, they've opened up, Japan has, in the last few years to American beef, which is

00:47something that previously we'd had a lot of issues with with regard to tariffs. So I'm hoping that

00:53the administration, by getting Japan and South Korea to the table, can create the kind of trading

01:00relationship that will be economically beneficial not only to the United States, but to Japan and

01:04South Korea, and that will further isolate China. And I think when there are good, strong economic

01:10relationships, it also has the tangential benefit of strengthening national security. And we have a lot

01:15of interests, a lot at stake in that region of the world. So I hope as the administration works through

01:21this, the conversations that they're having with Japan and South Korea, that the ultimate end state

01:26will be an agreement that opens up trade among our nations and creates that kind of a trilateral trading

01:33relationship.