Nancy Pelosi strongly supported tariffs before Donald Trump came into the picture. Trump is accomplishing what Pelosi dreamed of achieving nearly three decades ago. In 1996, on the House floor, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) gave a speech highlighting America’s trade imbalance with China.
“How far does China have to go? How much more repression? How big a trade deficit and loss of jobs to the American worker? And how much more dangerous proliferation has to exist before members of this House of Representatives say ‘I will not endorse the status quo?’” Pelosi touted.
At the time, bipartisan support existed to grant China Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status, but a younger Pelosi firmly disagreed and believed China was taking advantage of the US. “China should not receive most favorite nation status,” she declared. Similar to Trump’s reciprocal tariff charts, Pelosi provided a chart on the status quo of America’s $34 billion trade deficit with China in 1995, which was expected to rise to $40 billion in 1996.
“Since the Tiananmen Square massacre, this figure has increased 1,000% from $3.5 billion to $34 billion now. In terms of tariffs, I think it’s interesting to note that the average US MFN tariff on Chinese goods coming into the United States is 2%, whereas the average Chinese MFN tariff on US goods going into China is 35%. Is that reciprocal? On exports, China only allows certain industries into China, and therefore, only 2% of US exports is allowed into China. On the other hand, the US allows China to flood our markets with a third of their exports.”
Fast-forward to 2025 when her political opponent implemented tariffs on China. Suddenly, Pelosi believes a tariff on China is “reckless” and told her party to repeat the message that Trump’s tariffs will damage the US economy and hurt the American people. “Donald Trump’s reckless tariffs will cause chaos in our economy, raise prices for consumers, and hurt hardworking American families. This is not a strategy — it’s the largest tax hike on the American people in history,” Pelosi wrote on X.
Yet, in 1996, Pelosi believed the opposite to be true and stated that China was stealing millions of US jobs. “In terms of jobs, this is the biggest and cruelest hoax of all, not only do we not have market access, not only do they have prohibitive tariffs, not only our exports not let in very specifically, but China benefits with at least, at least, 10 million jobs from U.S.-China trade. The president in his statement, requesting the special waiver said that China trade supports 170,000 jobs in the United States whereas our imports from China support a 10 million jobs at least … the fact is that U.S.-China trade is a job loser.”
Pelosi visited Tiananmen Square in 1991 to protest China’s suppression of protestors. She was extremely critical of China’s trade practices, ethics, and human rights abuses. At the time, her views expressed a desire to strongly distance the US from China in general.
In 2018, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the US-China trade deficit send 3.4 million jobs offshore. Manufacturing, a sector that has been on the decline in recent years, accounted for 74% of all job losses to China. As for Pelosi’s home state, 560,000 jobs were lost to China, the largest loss by state in the nation, followed by Texas, which lost 314,000 positions.
The deficit has widened and Chinese goods have continued to flood the US market. The only thing that has changed is the person paving the way for these tariffs. Pelosi’s flip is yet another example of a politician expressing views that express their self-interest rather than the interest of the American public.
