Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said that President Trump’s tariffs will likely cause “some pain before gain.” But the tariffs, a new raft of which are expected to be announced by Trump on April 2, are a way for Europe, China and the Middle East to “help us build back our country” Tuberville claimed, talking about building back a United States that according to the World Bank has the largest economy in the world.
“We have built China, the American taxpayer, we have built the Middle East, we have built Europe,” Tuberville claimed, taking an expansive view of American economic contributions to those regions.
The U.S. has provided aid and resources to all the regions Tuberville mentions for decades. And a top Trump-aligned Republican saying America essentially put China on the map is not new. Ken Langone, the Home Depot co-founder and major GOP donor, said the same during Donald Trump‘s first term.
Talking about China, Langone said in 2019: “Remember where we started at, we did everything we should’ve done to help a nation that large and that significant get on their feet. Now it’s time to pay the bill.”
Tuberville: “We built China – the American taxpayers. We built the Middle East. We built Europe. So now it’s time they help us build back our country after we’ve helped them so much, and that happens to be with tariffs.” pic.twitter.com/PYDOTyf7ed
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 1, 2025
The Brookings Institution’s detailed look at the U.S.-China relationship asserts: “The two economies are complementary and tightly intertwined, for better and worse. These connections enable expanded markets, diffusion of innovations, and lower prices for consumers. They can also spawn problems, such as distorted labor markets, unfair competition, and even criminality, as seen in the Chinese role in the fentanyl trade.”
The latter three are the top issues the Trump tariffs are meant to offset. But Tuberville’s notion that America “built” China and Europe and the Middle East, putting aside the Marshall Plan work on war recovery in the 1950s, is a unilateral view of what have been cooperative — if also competitive — relationships.
One commenter reacting to Tuberville’s insistence about America’s outsize contributions notes in a contrary take: “China owns $759 billion of US debt so I think China helped build America.”
China owns $759 billion of US debt so I think China helped build America.
— Terri Menke-Rickman PhD (@TMRickman) April 1, 2025