James Risch: ‘Tariffs Are Not a Good Thing’

FAULKNER: "Let’s talk about the President putting some pressure, I think they call it maximum pressure now, on China. He may increase tariffs from 10 to 25 percent on a lot of goods. What do you think will happen if that happens?"

RISCH: "It’s hard to say. Look, most of us up here, are free traders. Tariffs are not a good thing. If everybody could trade and we had a level playing field without tariffs, everything would be fine. The difficulty is the Chinese have perfected using our technology to do things they want to do. Certainly there is no objection to China developing the technology they want but to take things that have been patented, we have a perfect case in Idaho, Micron Technology, that makes microchips, they are being sued in China for a violation of a patent they own in the United States but it was taken to China and the state owned enterprise in China that owns that is suing Micron before a state owned enterprise in Chinese court and they are having a very difficult time of it. This stuff is insidious, it is very difficult and you can’t compete in that kind of world."

FAULKNER: "The President now sees economic hemorrhaging, those are my words, but it is what is happening in China right now. It is a strategy, we will see what it yields. Great to see you, Senator, thank you."