Gary Cohn made his fortune as an investment banker and the eventual President of financial giant Goldman Sachs. It was surprising to many when Cohn, a Democrat, took a position as a economic policy adviser to President Donald Trump. He left the White House after losing an argument over the implementation of tariffs.
Now that the tariffs have been in place for nearly a year, the former adviser was asked about their impact by the BBC. Cohen explained that China was prepared for the action and that the tariffs are backfiring on the United States.
The investment banker told the BBC, “I think the Chinese economy was going to slow down with or without a trade war. I think the Chinese economy is driven by credit and credit availability. Credit and credit availability is determined by the central government. And they can turn it on and they can turn credit off.”
Cohn then went into how the tariffs have hurt the United States. “When you build plant equipment, you’re buying steel, you’re buying aluminium, you’re buying imported products and then we put tariffs on those, so literally the tax incentive we gave you with one hand was taken away with the other hand,” said the banker.
The ex-Trump adviser then discussed how no one is really winning the battle. “I think everyone loses in a trade war. We are an 80% service economy. The service side of the economy is doing very well, because, guess what, it’s not being tariffed,” said Cohn