This story is from April 08, 2025

Trump tariff tales: Donald Trump, in his resurfaced 1988 interview with Oprah Winfrey says, "I’d make our allies pay"

In a resurfaced 1988 interview, Donald Trump criticized the trade imbalances with allies like Japan and Kuwait, asserting they weren't paying their fair share. He argued Japan made it nearly impossible for the US to sell goods there while freely exporting to America.
Trump tariff tales: Donald Trump, in his resurfaced 1988 interview with Oprah Winfrey says, "I’d make our allies pay"
President Donald J. Trump’s 1988 interview with the host, Oprah Winfrey, has been getting traction, where he criticised the tariff system with Japan and Kuwait, stating that the US allies should pay their share of tariffs. The viewers were quick to connect the dots after he imposed a 10% baseline tax on imports for the countries with additional tariffs for some countries, naming it the ‘Liberation Day’ for the United Sates.

What did Donald Trump say?

In the viral clip, Winfrey questioned Trump about how he would change the policies or something that he would prefer to do differently. Without any seeming hesitation, Trump alleged he would make the allies pay their fair share of taxes - forget about the enemies.

Trump said about Japan...

“I’d make our allies pay their fair share. We are a debtor nation. Something is going to happen over the next number of years with this country because you can’t keep on going on losing two hundred billion, and yet we let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets. It’s not free trade,” he claimed in his monologue. “If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it, just forget about it.
It’s almost impossible. They don’t have laws against it, they just make it impossible. They come over here, they sell their cars, their VCRs, and they knock the h–l out of our companies,” he added.

Trump said about Kuwait...

In addition to lashing out on Japan, Trump criticised Kuwait as well. “Kuwait, they live like kings. The poorest person in Kuwait lives like king,” the POTUS exclaimed. The Republican politician questioned the tariff system where Kuwaitis have it easy to sell their oil, and they did not share the twenty-five percent of what they made. “It's a joke,” Donald Trump claimed.
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