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A Republican Rep. said the GDP in the ruby red state he represents plummeted in the first quarter of the year as a result of economic policies implemented by the Trump administration.
Speaking to CNN, Rep. Don Bacon said Nebraska’s GDP dropped by 6% in the first three months of the year, and that “it’s all about trade.”
“It’s all about getting corn and soybeans out of the door,” he added. “So, what I hear with, you know, weak jobs numbers, we’re sort of seeing that in Nebraska right now.”
Bacon, who has broken with the Trump administration on different occasions throughout the year, defined the situation as a “bit of a troubled economic mess.”
The Hill noted that the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report in late June noting that the real GDP in the first quarter of the year dropped in 39 of the country’s 50 states. Iowa and Nebraska showed the largest decline, dragged down by the agricultural sector.
“Doing tariffs against 80 different countries, I have a hard time accepting that as a sound strategy,” Bacon said in another passage of the interview. “I think in the end the American consumer would be paying a lot more for the price of their goods. And we’re already starting to see that because in the end, tariffs are a tax on consumers.”
Bacon then claimed that Fortune 500 companies are telling him they’re losing “a share of the market,” a trend that will further impact job numbers and inflation.
“But if the president sticks with these numbers, I think, over time, these 25 percent tariffs will be represented in the goods we buy from these countries. And so I’m concerned about the strength of our economy,” Bacon concluded.
The lawmaker, who will retire at the end of his term, introduced earlier this year an initiative that would make tariffs expire after 60 days if Congress doesn’t approve them. The bill would have also allowed Congress to pass a resolution of disapproval and eliminate tariffs at any given time. The initiative never moved forward.
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