[ Daily News | December 02, 2016 |Inside US Trade]
Top officials with the Trump transition team defended the President-elect’s threat of a 35 percent tariff on any U.S. company that offshores its operations and then exports its goods back to the U.S., telling reporters such businesses are effectively “profiting off the backs of U.S. workers.”
“The only way this [tariff] happens is if you want to abandon U.S. workers. If you stay in the country – there is no penalty. This doesn’t happen unless you try to profit off the backs of U.S. workers,” Jason Miller, communications director of Trump’s transition team, told Inside U.S. Trade during a Dec. 8 call with reporters.
Drawing attention from the business community and key GOP lawmakers, Trump, in a series of sharply worded Twitter posts on Dec. 4, threatened to impose a 35 percent tariff on products from any U.S. company that moves operations offshore.
