Governor Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday confirmed he supports President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to impose new tariffs against Mexico to compel the neighboring nation to cut the flow of fentanyl over the southern border. Youngkin argues that Trump’s plans will ignite an expansion in manufacturing for Virginia.
Youngkin reportedly confirmed his support for Trump’s tariffs during a Tuesday press conference, as he provided an update on the commonwealth’s efforts to curtail fentanyl overdoses with Attorney General Jason Miyares.
After delivering his remarks, WVTF reported Youngkin said Trump’s tariffs against Mexico will lead to “an incredibly robust economy that is going to reshore manufacturing from around the world into America and Virginia because ‘Made in America’ means made in Virginia.”
Youngkin further predicted to reporters, “I think we’ll see an extraordinary economic expansion in America that may have never been seen before.”
The governor further said that Virginia’s approach to fighting fentanyl and opioid deaths “is working,” but the federal government must “eradicate” the illicit drug trade and “crush it” in order to make national progress.
His defense of tariffs comes after Trump promised to impose a 25 percent tariff against Mexico unless it acted to cease the flow of illegal immigrants and fentanyl over the southern border, and hours after Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told Trump she would impose reciprocal tariffs.
Before Sheinbaum issued her letter, she stated publicly that the migrant caravans seen traveling toward the United States would not make it to the border shared with Mexico.
After Youngkin endorsed Trump when he became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in March, the governor went on to defend Trump’s plan to threaten or impose tariffs against foreign nations during an appearance on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”
“U.S. companies do not have access on an unfettered basis to the Chinese market, and yet they expect to have unfettered access to the U.S. market, and so we’ve got to stand up strong for the United States,” said Youngkin in July, according to Washington Examiner.
The governor specifically argued that China seeks to “dominate the world” economically, and argued tariffs are an opportunity to “fight back” against the expansionist nation.
He told Bloomberg, “What that has translated to is a real recognition that we need to not only protect ourselves against China but we need to fight back, and so the tariffs that President Trump imposed on China when he struck the first Chinese deal were critical in order to rebalance an unbalanced situation with China.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Glenn Youngkin” by Governor of Virginia.
