Ignoring all the foreign investment in America announced since President Trump started using tariffs to encourage American industry, former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, regarded by many as an utter disaster, claimed in a ridiculous appearance on CNN that President Trump’s tariffs are doing “immense damage to our economy.”
Yellen’s comments on the matter came during a Friday, April 11, appearance on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” as the stock market faced a marginal decline in the wake of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement from the week prior, in which he explained increased tariffs on America’s trading partners, particularly China, that will protect American industry.
In any case, speaking to host Anderson Cooper, Yellen snapped that the tariffs are a major, self-inflicted wound on the American economy. She said, “This is the worst self-inflicted policy wound I’ve ever seen in my career inflicted on our economy. The Trump tariff plans are doing immense damage to our economy.
Continuing, she claimed that the results are “scary” because the stock market declined a bit, ignoring the manufacturing jobs and investments coming to America as companies try to avoid the tariffs. She said, “You can see that in the stock market, in the impact of these tariffs are expected to have on American households. And we’re even beginning to see what looks like a flight away from dollar-based assets in the financial markets, which is a really scary development.”
Cooper also pointed to the stock market to claim that tariffs aren’t to America’s benefit, snapping, “How long? I mean, the, the the damage to the reputation of the United States, to the confidence people have or had around the world toward the United States is reflected in the dollar and investments. How long does that something like that take to rebuild?”
Yellen, who many claim caused immense problems for America by utilizing short-term rather than long-term loans when interest rates were low, meaning America now has a far higher interest rate burden as that debt rolls over, then started ranting about American debt and its costs.
Doing so, the former Treasury Secretary said, “Well, I think that could take a long time to rebuild. Dollar assets have long been regarded as the safest in the world, especially U.S. treasury bonds and bills. They form the core of the whole global financial system. And what we saw this week was a sharp increase.”
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Continuing her rant about debt costs as a way of attacking the Trump tariffs, the former Treasury Secretary then said, “One of the biggest increases on record over the space of a week in long-term treasury yields almost 50 basis points. And at the same time a decline in the value of the dollar.”
Concluding, she told Anderson Cooper, “This is really unusual pattern because in chaotic times, usually treasury yields fall the the treasury bonds are a safe haven. People buy them. That’s not what’s happening now. They’re selling treasuries. And there’s also downward pressure on the dollar.”
Watch her here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video