National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said that President Donald Trump has the authority to block U.S. companies from conducting business in China.
Kudlow told CBS’s Margaret Brennan during a Sunday segment of “Face the Nation” that “ultimately, he has the authority,” to block private businesses from from investing in China.
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Kudlow explained, “Emergency economic power authority.” Kudlow then compared Trump’s authority to block U.S. businesses with his authority to deal with illegal immigration, “Well, it was nearly invoked, regarding the Mexican border crisis, before the Mexicans came to our rescue, and they’ve done a great job down at the border, great job. So in theory, that law exists.” (RELATED: More Immigrants Are Turned Away As Mexico Ramps Up Enforcement)
Kudlow then clarified, “But that is not what the president said. He’s asking American companies to take a look, take a fresh look, at, frankly, moving out of China, going someplace else.”
Kudlow then added, “He’s asking them to come home. Come back home to America. We’re giving you low taxes and low regulations and an entrepreneurial environment. So in a sense, this is nothing new. Maybe the way it was phrased was a little tougher than usual. But come home.”
Kudlow’s comments come after the president took to Twitter to order U.S. companies to “start looking for an alternative” to China for business after the Chinese government imposed tariffs on U.S. automobiles and other goods Friday in response to the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China.
On the same day, Trump announced an additional 30% tariff on $250 billion of Chinese goods in retaliation to China’s tariffs.
The president has said that he did not want to engage in a trade war with China when he first took office, but that the trade war chose him. “This is not my trade war, this is a trade war that should have taken place a long time ago, by a lot of other presidents. Somebody had to do it. I am the chosen one,” Trump said Wednesday.