Ronald Reagan was right, Trump is wrong | Bob Barney (Transcript)

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO BOB BARNEY’S MIDDAY BROADCAST: Ronald Reagan was right, Trump is wrong | Bob Barney

Hi, Bob Barney here with The Plain Truth Today, brought to you by theplaintruth.com, and we’re going to revisit programs that I did last springtime, and I wanted to show, because the breaking news of last week was President Trump now getting mad at Canada, mainly Ontario, not the whole country, playing Ronald Reagan addresses to the nation about tariffs, and Trump said they were all fake videos, and they’re not fake videos, and if you have been a follower of the Plain Truth broadcast now for at least the last nine months, you would have heard about these tariff things that I played all, I believe there’s four of them, they’re about five to six minutes long, they were when he was president, he did radio addresses every Saturday, a lot of times from his ranch, and I’m going to just play the audio on this program of some outtakes of these programs that he did, but in this particular one, and on a side note, I think I’ll have my editor put links on the bottom to, you can go see all four of the videos, so you can understand that every one of them are accurate, they’re the entire speech, and you can see they’re not fake media, they’re not fake videos, as Donald Trump tries to say.

Donald Trump continues to keep lying, and that is the plain truth, he is lying about almost everything he’s doing this term around, and it’s very sad, because the people who voted for him, and you’re listening to one of them, the people that voted for them had high hopes, like what he did the first time around, are sorely disappointed in his rhetoric, and he actually acts like a senile old man, what he accused Joe Biden of, he seems to be himself, he’s a vindictive, senile old man, and that’s how he appears to me, and I have said before, I gave a warning, Friday morning’s Best of Bob series I had last Friday morning, was the warning I gave as early as February 5th of last year, saying this guy, this time around, is not acting like the first time around, but let’s listen to one of Ronald Reagan’s fair trade, free trade broadcast, and we’re going to listen to that, we’ll talk a little bit more, and like I said, I’ll probably have my editor put up all the links to all of his broadcast, but you can see for yourself where Ronald Reagan stood on tariffs, and you can see that the people of Ontario did not fake videos. My fellow Americans, last Wednesday I notified Congress of my decision not to impose either quotas or tariffs on foreign shoe imports into this country.

I’d like to talk with you about that decision because the case of shoe imports illustrates why so-called protectionism is almost always self-destructive, doing more harm than good, even to those it’s supposed to be helping. Advocates of a protectionism often ignore its huge hidden costs that far outweigh any temporary benefits. The Council of Economic Advisers estimate that the quotas on shoe imports that I turned down would have cost the American consumer nearly three billion dollars, and there are other costs.

Quotas would have entitled our trading partners to another two billion dollars in compensation, or they would have retaliated, slapping quotas or tariffs on the products we sell to them. That would mean an immediate loss of American jobs and a dangerous step down the road to a trade war. Also, if our trading partners can’t sell their products here, they can’t afford to buy our exports, and that means more lost jobs for Americans.

Protectionism almost always ends up making the protected industry weaker and less able to compete against foreign imports. Between 1977 and 1981, U.S. footwear manufacturers received protection from foreign imports, but at the end of that time they were more vulnerable to foreign competition than before. Instead of protectionism, we should call it destructionism.

It destroys jobs, weakens our industries, harms exports, costs billions of dollars to consumers, and damages our overall economy. Of course, free trade also means fair trade. We will move vigorously against unfair trading practices using every legal recourse available to give American manufacturers a fair shake at home and open markets abroad.

The balance of trade has become a very emotional issue. Some claim our trade deficit has cost us millions of jobs. Congress is awash in bills calling for trade sanctions and retaliation.

But look at the facts. In 1980, we had a trade surplus, and about 99 million Americans had jobs. Today, we have a trade deficit, and almost 107 million Americans are working.

Despite a growing trade deficit, we’ve gained over 7.5 million new jobs since 1980. I want to interrupt right here and just re-estate what he just said. Under the Jimmy Carter years, does anybody want to go back to the Jimmy Carter stagflation years? Well, we’re in it right now under the Trump administration.

Why? Because Donald Trump is following Democratic policies of tariffs. Tariffs are a Democrat policy. They’re not a Republican policy.

Any conservative at all knows what tariffs do. You just heard it from Ronald Reagan’s mouth. And you also heard that we had a trade surplus, which Donald Trump wants to have a trade surplus, like that’s the holy grail.

And President Reagan just tore that entire notion apart when he said there was more jobs under his administration already in the first three years than Jimmy Carter could get with all of his protectionism. So let’s go on with what he had to say, but let’s get rid of this idea that we have to have a trade surplus with everybody, because it’s nonsense. Our free, open, and growing economy has put more Americans to work in 1985 than ever before in our history.

We’ve created more jobs in the last three years than Europe and Japan combined. The surest way to destroy those jobs and throw Americans out of work is to start a trade war. And one of the first victims of a protectionist trade war will be America’s farmers, who have it tough enough already.

I do not, right now, who is paying right instantly for this trade war? And that’s a trade war we’re in right now. Who’s paying for it the most right now? It’s the American farmer. It’s the American beef farmer who just got stabbed in the back by President Trump when he allowed Argentine beef to come in here without a duty, and then sends Argentina 20 billion dollars on top of it.

And it’s also all of the soybean farmers that no longer, last month, China bought zero dollars of soybeans from the United States, bought every bit of their soybeans from Brazil, and yes, Argentina, Donald Trump’s best friend, who is screwing us by selling their soybeans to China, while we’re protecting them with their beef to America and a 20 billion dollar infusion of cash. This is not for farmers. And Ronald Reagan’s right.

Who suffers first? Is the farmer, then the consumer. A news story the other day said protectionist fervor on the hill is stronger than it has been since the 1930s. Well, now, some of us remember the 1930s, when the most destructive trade bill in history, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, helped plunge this nation and the world into a decade of depression and despair.

From now on, if the ghost of Smoot-Hawley rears its ugly head in Congress, if Congress crafts a depression-making bill, I’ll fight it, and whether it’s a tax, trade, or farm legislation that comes across my desk, my primary consideration will be whether it is in the long-run economic interest of the United States. And any tax hike or spending bill or protectionist legislation that doesn’t meet the test of whether it advances America’s prosperity must and will be opposed. America is getting stronger, not weaker.

Our 23 percent tax rate cuts have given us two and a half years of economic expansion, a dramatic increase in after-tax personal income, and the most dramatic drop in poverty in ten years. We must not retreat into the failed policies of the past, whether they be protectionism or higher taxes. Let’s go forward by cutting income tax rates again and building opportunity.

On Monday, we’ll be recognizing America’s working men and women. We’ve created over seven million jobs in the last four and a half years. On this Labor Day, let’s challenge ourselves to create ten million more in the next four.

To do that, we’re going to have to be courageous, hopeful, hardworking, and proud, which pretty well sums up what it means to be an American. There is one quality I left out, faith in the loving God who will continue to guide us on the optimistic course we’ve set. Enjoy your Labor Day holiday.

Until next week, then, thanks for listening. That was the first of several Saturday radio broadcasts as president that Ronald Reagan did. That one was in August, right before Labor Day of 1985.

Here’s another one I’m going to play here in a second that goes into even more detail about trade wars and world wars. When you look at what’s going on with Ukraine, with Russia, with China and Taiwan, with Russia and Europe, and now with Donald Trump trying to make war with Venezuela and Colombia, we are on the verge of world war like we haven’t seen in a long time. You know, the last time we were on the verge of world war, Ronald Reagan was president, and guess what? Ronald Reagan stopped it all.

He stopped, he destroyed the Soviet Union, he destroyed our enemy base, he gave a peace dividend to the world. We just squandered it. That’s the problem. We just squandered it with bad leadership in this country. Ronald, I mean, I’m sorry, Donald Trump was correct about saying we’ve had bad leadership ever since Ronald Reagan was president. And Donald Trump, the first time around, Trump 2.1, I’m sorry, 1.0 was much better than Trump 2.0, because Trump 1.0 seemed to understand basic economics. This Trump does not. He is leading us into a trade war. He’s already got us there.

He’s leading us into a war we cannot win when it comes to trade, and he’s leading us into a possible world war. I’ll be right back after this quick word on The Plain Truth. theplaintruth.com is the one place to go to to understand today’s news, the history of today’s news, to understand what’s going on, and maybe what God has to say about it through the pages of his Bible.

That’s theplaintruth.com. Please go there every day where you can find our message board, Your Health Today, the main page, and these podcasts that I call broadcasts. This is Bob Barney for theplaintruth.com saying thank you for listening. We’ll be right back to the show in a sec.

So in this next one, I’m going to play the audio sound to was the last one he gave on tariffs. He gave two, I believe, in between. I think he gave one in 86 and another one in 87, because the Democrats constantly wanted to keep passing tariffs through Congress.

And remember, unlike what Donald Trump’s had, Ronald Reagan didn’t ever have both branches of Congress on his side. For that matter, he didn’t even have the Supreme Court on his side, and he certainly did not have any press on his side. He didn’t have a Fox News that lied for him.

He did not have a Newsmax that lied for him, or a Rav TV that sits there and is a cheerleader for him. Ronald Reagan stood alone. There was not even a Rush Limbaugh for Ronald Reagan.

He stood alone, but you can listen to him. Listen to this man, just when he reads the script, the absolute talent of how to talk to the American people without being belligerent, without acting like an idiot or a moron or an arrogant asshole. And that’s what we have right now in the White House. And he’s costing Americans jobs. He’s costing Americans their money and their future. And so I want to give you the broadcast he gave about tariffs, and this was on March 12th of 1988. I remember this one as well. It’s going to start in a second. My fellow Americans, I’d like to talk to you today about our nation’s trade policy.

I can’t think of a recent economic issue that has generated more heat and less light, yet has more importance to our long-term national interest than trade. Throughout the seven years I’ve been in office, professional doomsayers have latched on to one issue after another as evidence of an American decline. They can’t seem to acknowledge the obvious good news that surrounds us, the low inflation, the over 15 million new jobs since November 1982, and the longest peacetime economic expansion of the century.

By the way, that is all the stuff Donald Trump promised that I believed he could deliver after his 2017, 18, 19 years as president. But Ronald Reagan delivered. We had the low inflation rate, which we do not have today.

Our inflation keeps rising year after year. I remember gas went from like $1.29, which was high at that time in 1980, to a low of, I remember paying 39 cents a gallon in Florida for a gallon of gas in 1984. So that’s what Ronald Reagan did for us.

That’s what Ronald Reagan did for our pocketbooks. There’s a reason why Ronald Reagan is loved by a lot of us. Here’s some more of what he had to say.

Trade is only the most recent subject of lamentation by our critics. For them, our trade deficit is an excuse for getting the government more involved in private business decisions. They say that Americans can’t compete with foreign workers, so we should slow imports by erecting protectionist trade barriers.

As usual, the doom merchants are wrong. The U.S. economy remains the most dynamic and exciting one on the globe. You know, I just want to interrupt again, and I won’t keep interrupting, but there’s just things he’s saying about the doomsdayers, about the protectionism of trade policy, which absolutely destroys the American economy.

That’s what he’s going to talk about here. But at the time, he’s talking about Democrats in Congress, because the whole idea of Democrats in Congress and tariffs were to protect union jobs in America, honestly, at the expense of the consumer. And this is exactly what Donald Trump is doing.

I’ve said now amongst my friends, I’ve said it on some of my Friday wrap-ups, that I do think that Donald Trump has found a new way of running the Republican Party. He’s decided that the Democrat way of winning elections by stealing them, or by lying about everything, or by getting behind unions and things like that, he’s going to steal the Democrat’s platform away from the Democrats. Well, the Democrat platform, whenever they were president, and whether they control this country, helped destroy this country.

Donald Trump’s policies are doing what Democrat policies did before him, destroy this country. Ronald Reagan gave us another 35 to 40 years, and we’re done for right now, unless we can find a way to find another Ronald Reagan. I was hoping it was going to be Donald Trump.

It certainly is not. Here we go on Moore. Our entrepreneurs, our can-do spirit, and our economic freedom are the envy of the world.

The pessimism used to justify protectionism is totally unfounded. Let’s clear up a few myths. First, the trade situation is improving far more quickly than people realize. Economists may disagree on the impact of the trade imbalance, but there is no disagreement that there has been a remarkable turnaround in the real trade deficit. Since the third quarter of 1986, the merchandise trade deficit in real terms has declined 18 percent. And over the past 15 months, the volume of exports has grown over four times as fast as the volume of imports.

Clearly, we are in an export boom. American industries, particularly manufacturers, are setting records. Unfortunately, there’s a threat to all this good news. I’m talking about the trade bill pending in Congress. Adopting protectionist measures and starting trade wars now would be like closing the barn door just as the horse is trying to get back in. The best way to keep our exports growing is to keep international trade expanding. And that brings me to another myth, that Congress can pass a law that will reduce the trade deficit without destroying our prosperity. Legislation can reduce a trade deficit only if it reduces economic activity. If people are not working, they’re not trading. We had a trade surplus and 25 percent unemployment in the Great Depression. A protectionist trade bill is a serious threat to our export boom. It’s a serious threat to the millions of American jobs that depend upon international trade.

It is filled with scores of provisions that are protectionist and defeatist. My veto pen is ready if the final bill remains anti-trade, anti-consumer, anti-jobs, and anti-growth. However, the administration is willing to work diligently with Congress to produce a bill that would increase our international competitiveness and complement our efforts to promote trade, exports, jobs, and productivity, not stymie them.

All those working on the bill should take a deep breath, take another look at the trade outlet, and work together in a constructive spirit. It is still possible to write a bill that I can sign. So, I’m going to remember this time, I didn’t think I was going to, but his, what he just said about exports, what we don’t understand, what Donald Trump simply does not understand, that when you put trade barriers from people sending products to us with big tariffs, they do the same thing back.

There are many American manufacturers, including mine, that decided in 2023 and 2024 to go worldwide with our paint company, that is absolutely being terrorized now and forcing us to move overseas, which I did not plan on doing, in order to manufacture so we do not have to pay tariffs going into the countries we want to go to, because the countries like Europe and Asia and Africa that want to buy our products now are going to be forced to pay for tariffs that their countries are doing in retaliation of Donald Trump’s tariffs. So, not only does the American public lose by paying more at the pump, you can say, and by the way, why doesn’t gas come down? I can tell you why. Because 75% of the gas that’s refined in America for automobile use is Canadian shale oil, which there’s a tariff on.

So, people ask, why isn’t the gas coming down when the price of oil is coming down? Because West Texas crude price has nothing to do with the gasoline in America. Unfortunately, that’s the plain truth. But going back, exporters, there are many companies that depend on exporting our products overseas, and they’re being destroyed, and that’s American jobs.

I’m going to have to replace or not hire Americans to find other places and other countries that we’re putting manufacturing facilities in, in order to be able to sell worldwide. That’s ridiculous. When we have Americans looking for work, you say, that’s what Donald Trump says, and his tariff protectionist policies is actually destroying those companies that are trying to export around the world.

And how about the longshoremen that he says he’s trying to help? How does it help the longshoremen when imports coming to us is down by 45% and exports to other countries are down by almost 65%? How does that help the longshoremen? How does that help the trade? How does it help the railroad industry? You ever go watch these long trains go by full of shipping containers? The railroad industry, a lot of high-paying jobs there. The longshoremen, a lot of high-paying jobs there. They’re all suffering because of these tariffs.

And the idea over the weekend that everybody’s talking on the fake media, and I don’t care if you’re listening to the left or the right, for the most part, it’s all fake media. Nobody’s talking for the American people, but this show, it seems like. But if you listen to them all, that Donald Trump is winning.

Well, maybe Donald Trump is winning, but the American people are not. Let’s finish this one last thing from Ronald Reagan, and I’ll come back and finish the whole show up. Indeed, I’m encouraged by reports on the status of the trade bill negotiations.

The conference committee working on the final draft of the bill has already eliminated a number of troublesome provisions, including illegal quotas, budget-busting giveaways, and protectionist measures. Many objectionable provisions remain, including proposed procedural changes in the law. But I’m hopeful that in the next phase, these will be jettisoned.

Only wholesale elimination of many of the existing items will produce a bill I can sign. Regardless of whether I sign trade legislation this year, we will continue our free and fair approach to trade policy. We will challenge unfair trade practices of other countries in order to achieve a level playing field for American industries.

We will negotiate to knock down trade barriers on a bilateral or multilateral basis. In that regard, we will seek early enactment of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and push for concrete progress in the upcoming Uruguay round of trade negotiations. Finally, we will continue to coordinate economic policies with our major trading partners, thereby helping to maintain a favorable international climate for trade expansion.

America’s open market is its great strength, not its weakness. International trade has helped bring unparalleled prosperity to the American people. It would be a tragic mistake to surrender to doubt and defeatism just when our prospects are looking so bright.

I have confidence in America, and I’m sure you do too. Until next week, thanks for listening, and God bless you. Well, God bless Ronald Reagan, the last great president we’ve had in the last 75 years, it seems like.

But anyway, I want to finish up here. I think I’m going to do one or two more quotes that came from some other shows of his. But you understand what Donald Trump said last week, that Canada’s TV ad lied about what Ronald Reagan stood for. It’s totally bogus. And the Ronald Reagan library that has these videos up, by the way, I’m waiting for them to take them down. This last video you heard was put up nine years ago, and they come out and they agree with Donald Trump that the Canadians had no right to use the broadcast.

I don’t know why, it’s on YouTube. And also that they misinformed the American public what Ronald Reagan stood for. This is the Ronald Reagan library. Well, heck to them too, because they are just like the media and like everybody else, kowtowing to a person who wants to be a dictator. Well, I got news for you. Donald Trump is never going to be a dictator. He’s probably not going to finish out his presidency if he continues the way he’s going, because we’re going to see a romp of Congress in spite of these stupid Democrats who can’t do anything right. They can’t shoot straight. They can’t do anything right. But there is cognitive dissonance, talked about it Friday morning, that the American people will someday just zoop to the other side. And that is almost like the kiss of death for America. Ronald Reagan saved America.

Donald Trump’s doing his best to destroy America. And this program is for the plain truth. I’ll be right back.

I’m back. It took me a few seconds to find the next one I want to play a little bit of. This was a broadcast in 1987.

I’m going to give a few excerpts out of this one, then we’ll wrap the show up. My fellow Americans, there’s been a great deal of talk lately about trade, some of it suggesting we should protect American companies from foreign competition. I don’t believe the American people are afraid of competition.

That was made clear to me when I visited a Harley-Davidson plant recently. It’s a great story. Let me tell you about it.

Not that long ago, it was being said that Harley-Davidson, America’s preeminent manufacturer of motorcycles, couldn’t keep up, that the company was running out of gas and sputtering to a stop. Well, one of the worst mistakes anybody can make is to bet against Americans. Being tough on trade and commerce, the lifeblood of the economy, will have the worst possible consequences for the consumer and the American worker.

First, it will drive up the price of much of what we buy. But worse than that, it could drag us into an economy-destroying trade war. I’m old enough to remember the last time a so-called tough trade bill passed Congress.

It was called Smoot-Hawley, and it helped give us, or at least deepened, the Great Depression of the 1930s. The way up and out of the trade deficit is not protectionism, not bringing down the competition, but instead, the answer lies in improving our products and increasing our exports. I don’t call it protectionism, I call it destructionism.

That’s why our motto is free and fair trade with free and fair traders. You know, the Europeans talk about the American miracle of economic growth and job creation. Well, I’m going to do everything I can to keep that miracle of hope alive, creating jobs and opportunities for all Americans.

Until next week, thanks for listening. God bless you. Well, that was the greatest president of my lifetime.

I have to say that right now. And Donald Trump had the ability and the, in my opinion, the possibility of achieving what Ronald Reagan achieved and even greater. He really started on his first term going there. And maybe if all this lawfare that the Democrats did against him, instilling in the election of 2020, didn’t happen, maybe Donald Trump 2.0 in 2020, we would have been in a greater shape than we are today. But this country, my friends, is in bad shape. And this president is not making it in better shape. And I’m telling you right now, if you understand the pages of your Bible, you understand that America is the Ephraim of the Bible. Whenever you see the word Ephraim or Israel for that matter, but the word Ephraim especially is talking about the United States of America and our time and the time yet to come, when we will destroy ourselves as a nation and we will go back into captivity as the ancient nation of Ephraim under Israel did some 2,500 years ago. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs that we’re in.

And I hope that America wakes up and waking up is not voting Democrat, by the way, waking up is, I don’t know what it is right now, but while I do know what it is actually going to God in prayer, this nation needs to go to God and fasting in prayer to save this country, not to elect Donald Trump or anybody else. No man’s going to be able to do it. Only God is going to be able to save us from ourselves because without God’s help, we are doomed.

This is Bob Barney for the Plain Truth today. Thanks for listening. I do appreciate everybody and God bless as Ronald Reagan would say.

Bye-bye.