Vice President JD Vance defended President Donald Trump’s tariffs and encouraged patience as the country braces for the economic effect of the Trump administration’s new tariff policy.
In a Fox News interview on Thursday morning, as markets panicked and the dollar weakened, Vance acknowledged that the administration’s new policies are “a big change,” and signaled that the Trump administration is not shying away from some of the backlash to the tariffs and what they could mean for consumers’ pocketbooks.
“We know people are struggling,” Vance said during the interview. “We’re fighting as quickly as we can to fix what was left to us, but it’s not going to happen immediately.”
“What I’d ask folks to appreciate here is that we’re not going to fix things overnight.”
His argument was cast in the same frame as much of the Trump administration’s messaging around tariffs, arguing that the new policies would make it so other countries wouldn’t be able to “take advantage” of the U.S.
Vance’s comments follow Trump’s announcement Wednesday of a baseline 10% tariffs on imported goods. Several countries are facing higher rates. Republican lawmakers, with some exceptions, are largely lining up behind the tariffs, arguing that they’re part of Trump’s mandate.
Despite concern around the tariffs, Vance said there are some American businesses and manufacturers that will come to appreciate them.
Vance called the tariffs a “total shift in the way that we’ve done economic policy in the United States of America.” He added that the tax cuts that the administration has promised aren’t about “offsetting the tariffs.”
“We want to penalize people for shipping our jobs overseas,” he said. “We want to reward hardworking Americans. It’s all part of the same policy.”
Vance also addressed reports that Elon Musk could be taking a step back in his position with the Department of Government Efficiency, calling it “fake news.” He added that Musk will continue to remain a “friend and adviser” of the administration. The administration, including Vance on Thursday, has suggested his time leading DOGE may be coming to an end.
“Elon came in, and we said, ‘We need you to make government more efficient. We need you to shrink the incredible, vast bureaucracy that thwarts the will of the American people, but also costs way too much money,’” Vance said. “And we said that that’s going to take about six months, and that’s what Elon signed up for.”
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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.