WASHINGTON — This week, Ambassador Jamieson Greer joined The Daily podcast with The New York Times reporter Ana Swanson to discuss the Trump Administration’s America First Trade Policy. During the conversation, Ambassador Greer highlighted the success of President Trump’s America First trade program that is rebalancing the global trading order, revitalizing our industrial base, and advancing the interests of American farmers, manufacturers, and workers.
Listen to the full podcast here.
Tariffs are Protecting the Interests of American Workers and their Families: “If America doesn’t develop and implement its own policies to protect its industries and its workers, we will end up being policy takers. So, if we’re not policy makers, we end up being policy takers… Our role as policy makers is to do right by the American citizen… We have to take measures to protect our economy, to protect our industrial base, to protect our agricultural production, to protect our factories and farms and families and the people who work there.”
The Trump Administration is Reversing Decades of Bad Trade Policy to Reshore Jobs and Production Lines: “Our trade deficit exploded by 40% in the five years before President Trump’s second term. It was at $1.2 trillion at the end of 2024. This is crazy. So, for us, this is an emergency, because that deficit represents jobs and production going overseas that could be here.”
President Trump is Using the Tools at His Disposal to Rebalance Trade: “If China is not going to change its practices that we believe are harmful, then we have to take unilateral measures. We have to be policymakers. Otherwise, we just have to accept all these giant surpluses that they’re developing through their own polices… [The trade deficit] has gone down by 25% in the past year. With China in particular, it’s gone down by 30%.”
America’s Industrial Base is Booming Under President Trump: “A lot of indicators on manufacturing have gone up. Manufacturing productivity is at the highest it’s been in years. Manufacturing overtime hours are going up. Manufacturing labor wages [went] up by 5% last year. And manufacturing jobs actually were net positive in the first quarter of 2026 for the first time in a few years.”
America First Trade is Working: “At the end of the day, we are winning in changing the trade policy. We’re winning at getting the trade deficit down. We’re winning in reshoring. We’re winning in wages. We’re winning on all these things. So, I’m happy with where we are and where we’re going.”
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