CNBC anchor Jim Cramer slammed the Trump administration for the “vast confusion” surrounding tariffs on goods from Canada, China and Mexico, Mediaite reports.
“There’s just vast confusion,” Cramer said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Tuesday, over who pays for the tariffs: U.S. producers, consumers or retailers — or the exporters themselves,
“No one knows,” Cramer railed. “I mean, the automakers don’t know what this is going to mean. The packaged goods companies don’t know mean when it comes from another country. There’s no clarity whatsoever. Anyone who thinks that there’s clarity is just completely wrong.”
Cramer continued: “It isn’t like they’ve said, ‘OK, look, here’s the schedule, here’s the tariff.’ Like, if you were in Europe and they did Brexit, you got the schedule, you got the tariff, and said, ‘OK, I owe this.’
“They haven’t given us anything! We don’t know what we owe, and what we don’t owe. We don’t know where it’s paid. We don’t know if it isn’t paid. Who owes it? Does a buyer [owe it]? I mean, the lack of any thought about this … is stunning! This is a huge amount of money involved.”
The CNBC anchor and host used as an example Modelo Beer, the No. 1 beer in the United States.
“If Modelo Especial gets hit by 25% tariff, people aren’t going to drink it,” Cramer said. “It’s too expensive.”
“I’m sure right now Constellation Brands, [the parent company of] Modelo, is saying, do we pay?” Cramer said. “Do we get [the retailer] Total Wine and More to pay? Does the customer pay? Do we pay at the border? … We don’t know! It is such a show that it is extraordinary to me that this is America. We don’t have any plan! I mean, we need a plan!”