Former vice-president Mike Pence criticized President Donald Trump’s approach on prices during a Sunday interview on NBC News’ Meet the pressCalling reciprocal prices recently revealed “the greatest increase in peacetime tax on the American people in the history of this country”.
Nowsweek contacted the White House by email on Sunday to comment.
Why it matters
This last demonstration of public criticism marks a significant break between Pence and its former boss on economic policy. The former vice-president and Trump had a fall after refusing to accompany the latter’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 elections.
Now he is one of the few Republicans wishing to publicly criticize Trump. Sunday’s interview follows Pence Wall Street Journal An editorial earlier this month, where he described Trump’s pricing policy as a “misstep of massive policy” and warned that “the economic warning signs flash”.
His comments highlight the growing divisions in republican circles concerning the approach of Trump’s second mandate to international trade, especially since these policies could have a direct impact on American consumers and businesses through potentially higher prices.
Images Alex Wong / Getty
What to know
While Pence began the interview renting aspects of Trump’s second administration, including border security efforts and military action against Houthis in Yemen, he noted “a certain departure of our administration’s policies in the country and abroad”.
The former vice-president stressed that Trump’s current tariff approach differs considerably from their first-term strategy, when prices were mainly used “as leverage for negotiations” rather than as a basic economic policy.
On April 2, Trump announced a series of radical world rates, including a 10% reference on all imported goods and “reciprocal” rates widely awaited. The implementation has led the stock markets to lower considerably, with Wall Street displaying its worst losses since 2020 and billions of dollars of erased value.
Shortly after the entry into force of the “reciprocal” prices in April, Trump interrupted most of them for 90 days, which increased the markets. In particular, he therefore did not delay the prices on China.
Pence has directly challenged the frequent attendance of Trump according to which other countries pay prices, declaring: “When the Americans buy goods abroad, the company which imports these goods from this country pays the price and most often transmits this at higher prices to consumers.” He expressed his concern that Trump’s plan could implement a reference base of around 10% of prices that would be “harmful to jobs in America” and “harmful to consumers”.
In his recent editorial for The Wall Street JournalPence wrote that the first quarter of 2025 “marked the second economic start for a presidential administration from Richard Nixon” and assigned this to the tariff announcement. He suggested that the administration should “unite the democratic world in trade agreements that isolate China, not Europe and our Pacific allies”.
What people say
President Donald Trump at the University of Alabama earlier this month: “The prices make us very rich. And you will see the results very soon – that most people do not think so. Because this is what other countries have done to us, just so that you understand.”
Former vice-president Mike Pence in his Wall Street Journal OP-ED: “The Trump administration can always put the economy on the right track thanks to free trade with free nations, even if the United States retains targeted prices on opponents such as China.”
Pence on Sunday Meet the press:: “When you are vice-president of the United States, my point of view is always as follows: I would favor the president, with my entire opinion in private.”
He added: “And then when he made the decision, my job was to support his decision in the absence of a higher vocation or a higher obligation that we have.”
What happens next
The American economy contracted 0.3% between January and March, the country’s first slowdown in three years.
The Trump administration faces pressures to conclude an agreement with China and other countries while the president’s survey numbers on the fall in the economy and economists say that prices will increase inflation and could send the economy in recession.
