Steve Bannon says Trump’s tariffs will put up prices of ‘the junk you buy at Walmart’

Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon has warned consumers that the White House’s tariffs on foreign goods may put up the price of ‘the junk you buy at Walmart’. 

The startling admission, in an interview with Anne Mcelvoy on Economist radio, came days after the White House announced the most punitive round of trade sanctions yet on Chinese goods.

Walmart, the nation’s and the world’s largest retailer, had written to Trump’s trade representative Robert Lighthizer earlier this month, urging him not to impose tariffs on items including Christmas lights, bicycles, shampoo, dog food and air conditioners.

But Bannon told the Economist Asks podcast: ‘Our system of economic nationalism is about maximizing the value of citizenship and sometimes that may have trade deals, tariffs, protection…

‘And guess what – you may end up paying 5% more or 10% more for the junk you buy at Walmart.’

The derogatory description of the products of Walmart, the biggest grocery chain in the U.S. with more than 11,000 branches – comes at in inconvenient time for the White House.

Back in the groove: Steve Bannon told the Economist Asks podcast that his former boss Donald Trump was right to impose tariffs for the sake of ‘economic nationalism’ – even at the risk of a 10 per cent rise in the cost of ‘the junk you buy at Walmart’

Retail warning: Walmart has already warned Trump’s trade representative that tariffs risk price increases for consumers. The nation’s largest retailer listed items it wanted exempted from levies, including Christmas lights and air conditioners

Enemies: Bannon renewed his criticism of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner being in Trump’s White House, saying: ‘I don’t agree that it serves his best interests that they are staffers – they had very different ideas about populism and some of the economic nationalism.’

It is fending off criticism from Walmart and other major businesses that the imposition of $200 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods from Monday, on top of $50 billion worth of products President Trump has previously taxed in a mounting trade war.

Pressed on whether the measures could ‘cost the Walmart shopper more,’ Bannon replied: ‘This is the ultimate fetish, yes, the consumer sometimes may actually end up paying more, but the trade-off will be high value-added manufacturing jobs that you can build a family around.’

The new trade row comes as the White House sought to calm tensions with Walmart.

Ivanka Trump heads to Dallas to visit the store’s staff training program Thursday, a move which appeared to be an olive branch by the White House.

It is not however the first time that Bannon, architect of Trump’s campaign success and his ‘America First’ slogan has locked horns with the First Daughter and her husband Jared Kushner.

Revealing fresh details of fierce rows during his time in the White House with Ivanka Trump, Bannon compared their rows to a ‘knife fight. 

‘On a number of occasions, Ivanka and I would get into it. 

When we I had fights I would say to her, “You are first daughter and I understand you you love your father, but here you are just another staffer and you have a chain of command.”

‘In a bureaucratic knife fight I can give as good as I get good as I get.’

He described Ivanka Trump as ‘very smart and tough and loves her father’.

But he added of Ivanka and Kushner: ‘I don’t agree that it serves his best interests that they are staffers – they had very different ideas about populism and some of the economic nationalism.’

Bannon also criticized the Trump campaign’s preparations for the crucial November mid-term elections saying: ‘If we had the mid-terms today we’d lose 35 seats minimum.

‘Now on the evening of November 6th there are going to be half a dozen to a dozen congressional districts that are going to come down to a couple of hundred votes that will decide the majority.’

‘There’ve been people – senior people associated with the campaign – who’ve said to Trump “It’s not so bad if you lose to the Democrats You can run against them and win in 2020.” These people are detached from reality.’

The elections are deemed vital to Trump’s presidency as Democrats seek to re-assert their electoral force in a blue wave, hoping to retake the House of Representatives, make gains in the Senate and in governors’ races. 

He blamed ‘a dangerous and insidious deep state’ in the White House, for undermining the Trump agenda – and said he has been sending messages to Trump, advising his old boss to take a firmer stand on an anonymous article in the New York Times while laid bare internal opposition among senior West Wing staff.

Protested:  Steve Bannon’s appearance at The Economist’s Open Future Festival in New York was controversial and came after The New Yorker withdrew his invitation to a similar forum. The event at 7 World Trade Center drew protests as a result of Bannon’s presence

‘I think the president has to do – not a witch hunt but the president needs to get in the Justice Department and the FBI… and hunt the sources of the article.’

One senior figure who put her head above the parapet in the aftermath of the op-ed was Nikki Haley, the ambassador to the United Nations, who wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying that she expressed her disagreements with the president face-to-face, not anonymously.

Bannon also expressed backing for a potential power bid by Haley and said: ‘She’s not shy about telling the President where she disagrees. I think she has tremendous future . and I hope she becomes a fiery populist.’

And quizzed on the impact on the administration of a grand plea bargain by former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Bannon replied: ‘If there is a plea bargain, especially with a prosecutors focused as Mueller, I wouldn’t have a dinner that night celebrate.’ 

Since leaving the White House last year Bannon has sought to build a populist movement uniting populist forces in Europe. 

He also intervened in the interview in domestic British politics, where the country’s referendum decision to leave the European Union has led to ferocious rows over the arrangements on how the UK trades with the EU’s remaining 26 members. 

On Brexit, Bannon prophesied there ‘would ‘be 100% ‘a trade deal after Brexit’. 

But he voiced doubts that it Britain would ultimately leave the EU.

‘I think there wil be a a ‘do-ver’ on Brexit. The opponents are dragging it on and hoping people forget about it ‘ He favors Boris Johnson as a successor to Theresa May.

‘I have talked to Boris Johnson and I am very impressed by him.’

And he defended Johnson’s controversial use of the suicide vest ‘It was the type of phrase that cuts through’, but thinks the former Foreign Secretary should have struck out nmore firmly against Theresa May when he quit the Cabinet over the Chequers deal this summer

‘I was vocal (to Boris) about the fact that he had a Churchillian moment – maybe his Commons speech could have rallied the troops. My advice would have been to seize moments like that. You have to make decisions in the heat of the moment – and that was a moment.’

Anne McElvoy is Senior Editor and head of Economist Radio 

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