Off The Record

Obama Makes a Direct Eight-Word Remark About Trump’s Controversial Tariff Plan

Published on April 7, 2025

Barack Obama has spoken out against US President Donald Trump’s most recent round of tariffs, stating that they are not “good for America.”

Trump, 78, declared a fresh round of tariffs on nations that import products into the US on April 2.

The Republican leader announced that a 10 percent “baseline” tax would be applied worldwide, with higher rates for the 60 nations on his list of “worst offenders.”

Vietnam (46 percent), South Africa (30 percent), and Japan (24 percent) are among the nations with high customs duties.

Former US President Barack Obama, 63, has now voiced his opinion on what Trump called “Liberation Day” for the US, which was announced during a White House Rose Garden Address.

On Thursday, April 4, the Democrat, who was the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017, made an appearance at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, to talk about the responsibilities.

Obama seized the opportunity to address America’s gun regulations while confirming that he was currently working on the second half of his presidential memoirs during his conversation with College President Steven Tepper.

He didn’t discuss Trump, his successor, until after that.

“I have deep differences of opinion with my most immediate successor — who’s now president once again,” he said.

“There are a host of policies that we could be discussing where I have strong opinions,” Obama continued, remarking how he believes the government’s commitment to strong principles has ‘eroded’.

As he continued, the lawmaker shared his personal thoughts on the previously proclaimed responsibilities of the Administration.

“When I watch some of what’s going on now, it does not — look, I don’t think what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy.”

“I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech,” the father-of-two continued.

“I am more troubled by the idea that a White House can say to law firms, ‘If you represent parties that we don’t like, we’re going to pull all our business or bar you from representing people effectively.’”

Then, he issued a telling eight-word remark on the subject: “Imagine if I had done any of this?”

The “same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that” from him during his or his predecessors’ tenure, according to Obama, would have been “unimaginable.”

He did, however, emphasize that one individual cannot “fix” the existing state of government.

“It is up to all of us to fix this. It’s not going to be because somebody comes and saves you. The most important office in this democracy is the citizen, the ordinary person who says, no, that’s not right.”

“I do think one of the reasons that our commitment to democratic ideals has eroded is that we got pretty comfortable and complacent.”

Trump, who enacted the tariffs under his IEEPA authority, thinks the higher taxes will make American customers choose to purchase more domestic products rather than imports.

“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” he stated.

Today, April 5, the 10% tax on all nations went into force.

At 12.01 EDT on April 9, the targeted reciprocal higher tax on the nations “with which the United States has the largest trade deficits” will go into effect.

The tariffs will stay in place until Trump decides that the “threat posed by the trade deficit and underlying nonreciprocal treatment is satisfied, resolved, or mitigated,” according to a White House statement.

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