Americans may be enthusiastic about president-elect Donald Trump’s call to slap a tax on companies that move jobs out of the country, but his vice-president doesn’t appear to be.
Seventy-four percent of voters support raising taxes on businesses in the United States that move manufacturing jobs to other countries, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll. Fifty-five percent of voters said they expected Trump would follow through on his promise to impose tariffs on goods made in China and Mexico.
But House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy declined Monday to endorse the idea and vice-president elect Mike Pence in an MSNBC interview on Tuesday wouldn’t be pinned down on the issue.
Asked about Trump’s idea for a 35 percent tariff, Pence said he and Trump believe in free trade but that the U.S. “has been negotiating really bad on trade deals.”
But on the tariff? he was asked again. “Well, I'm for us putting everything on the table and negotiations -- and renegotiating NAFTA and in negotiations with other countries,” he said.
Asked for a third time, Pence said the incoming administration wants “to put the American worker and American jobs first. But that's a belief in the free market.”
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