Vice President JD Vance defended the strength of the American economy on Thursday, even as President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue rocking the stock market. ‘You never can predict the future, but I think the economy, the fundamentals of the economy are actually quite strong right now,’ the vice president said during an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday.

Vance defended Trump’s tariffs as a way to convince American businesses to invest more in American workers, by bringing economic supply chains back into the United States. ‘We are going to make this economy stronger over the long haul and that is the presidents ultimate goal,’ he said.

Vance defended President Trump’s threat earlier Tuesday to raise tariffs as high as 200 percent on European wines, champagnes, and liquors, if the European Union moved forward with a planned 50 percent tariff on American whiskey and bourbon. The United States buys 50 percent of its wine from the European Union, including $2.5 billion of wine from France in 2024.

The vice president was defensive about Trump’s economic aggression toward Europe, accusing them of mistreating American companies for decades. ‘Of course, we care about European security, Laura, but they don’t treat us like an ally when it comes to economics,’ he said. ‘They actually hammer American consumers and American workers in the process.’

Vance accused the European Union of imposing ‘ridiculous tariffs’ on American products noting that the president was finally ready to retaliate. ‘If Europeans do something to us, we’re actually going to fight back economically for the first time in 40 years we have at who is standing up for America,’ he said.

The vice president said that some industries would move quickly to retool their manufacturing but that certain industries would ‘take a while’ to reorganize their supply chains. ‘We’re not going to do this anymore, we cannot run an economy where Americans borrow, go into debt that other people make for us we’re going to make it in America again, we have to,’ he said.

During the Oval Office meeting with Taoiseach of Ireland Micheal Martin on Wednesday, Trump expressed frustration that Ireland had lured American pharmaceutical companies into Ireland. ‘We do have a massive deficit with Ireland, because Ireland was very smart,’ Trump said. ‘They took our pharmaceutical companies away from presidents that didn’t know what they were doing — and, you know, it’s too bad that happened.’

The European Union leveled tariffs on $28 billion of American imports in retaliation for Trump’s decision to level a 25 percent tariff on aluminum and steel from Europe.

During remarks in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump called the European Union ‘one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States.’ ‘We’ve been ripped off for years and we won’t be ripped off anymore,’ he continued. ‘I’m not going to bend at all. Aluminum or steel. Or cars. We are not going to bend.’

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