From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation and the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been. So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s, they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting.

Then in 1929 it all came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression. And it would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy.

We're going to be charging [China with] a discounted reciprocal tariff of 34 percent.

You've seen my statements, I do very well, I don't mind paying some taxes. The middle class is getting clobbered in this country. You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it's ridiculous.

In 1913 for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government.

They charge us, we charge them, we charge them less. So how can anybody be upset? They will be, because we never charged anybody anything. But now we're going to charge.