Politics

‘Buy American’: CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Gets Schooled By Scott Bessent On Tariffs

Published

6 days ago

April 3, 2025

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent educated Kaitlan Collins Wednesday, schooling her on the importance of buying American-made goods after “Liberation Day,” the administration’s much-vaunted unleashing of increased tariffs around the world.

Outside the White House, the incorrigible CNN gadfly grilled Bessent on how quickly the administration’s 25% tariff on foreign-assembled vehicles will pay dividends in the form of increased domestic manufacturing. Bessent’s quick tongue was ready.

“If half the cars coming into the United States are foreign-made, that’s hard to turn around overnight,” Collins said about the new tariffs, asking Bessent what he is telling auto executives to alleviate their fears of sluggish sales.

“Buy American,” he said with a grin.

“What about American-made cars that are being made using foreign-made parts?” Collins stammered.

The top Trump advisor noted that cars produced under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement are exempt from the tariffs. Online automotive marketplace Cars.com found that just over half of new inventory vehicles had their final assembly in the U.S., while about 19% were assembled in Mexico and 4.2% in Canada, accounting for more than six in 10 new vehicles.

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The race to bring auto assembly back to the U.S. was already underway before Wednesday’s tariffs. Last month Honda announced that it would renege plans to assemble its 2025 Civic model at a Guadalajara plant, instead opting for an existing manufacturing site in Indiana.

The company’s decision followed similar ones by Hyundai, which announced a $20 billion domestic investment, as well as Stellantis’s commitment to reopening a plant in Belvidere, Illinois to produce its midsize trucks.

Stock prices for the nation’s largest auto producers were resilient upon Thursday’s opening bell, a sign that the USMCA exemptions are allaying concerns about the impact of tariffs on vehicle sales.

In an op-ed, Trump’s economic advisor, Peter Navarro, pleaded for Americans to be patient while tariffs work their way to lower prices for all.

“Other nations use unfair trade practices and predatory industrial policies to flood our market with subsidized vehicles and parts while blocking U.S. exports from reaching their own consumers,” he wrote for USA Today.

The [USMCA] was supposed to change this. Instead, under the Biden administration’s lax enforcement, Mexico became the new Michigan. A string of Mexican cities now forms a ‘Motor City diaspora’ − Volkswagen and Audi in Puebla, GM and Stellantis in Ramos Arizpe, Ford in Hermosillo, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz in Aguascalientes.

“By extending tariffs to both autos and auto parts, President Trump is confronting this threat to America’s economic and national security. He understands that powertrain design and production are not just technical challenges − they are strategic capabilities. Lose them, and we don’t just lose good jobs − we lose the industrial strength needed for national defense.”