The American economy won't start growing stronger until the nation's businesses have certainty about the future, and that is why President Donald Trump's call to make his tax cuts permanent is so vital, Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, told Newsmax on Sunday.
"That's why the tax cut that the president is pushing through, to make his tax cuts from 2017 lower rates for everybody, doubling the per child tax credit, doubling the standard deduction, full expensing for business investment, making most permanent, not just extended," Norquist said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend."
"That will give a great deal of certainty to men and women trying to decide, should we hire another five people," he added. "'Do we buy another truck? Yes, no. Do we wait?'"
Trump is also fighting for free trade across the world, but he wants it to be fair, which has led to his tariff policy.
"China, in particular, has kept out our products and not allowed us to compete in their markets," said Norquist. "He sees these tariffs as leverage to negotiate down and to free our trade. We're seeing that perhaps Israel dropped some of their tariffs. Taiwan's talking about dropping theirs. They say 50 to 70 different countries are looking to do this. As that happens, I think it will settle the markets."
But the trade war needs to end as soon as possible so American investors will know whether to hire more people, he added.
"We're not going to get the economy growing stronger until businessmen and women have some certainty about what the future holds," Norquist said. "All of this uncertainty means we wait, and we have an election. The Chinese don't have elections. They can take all the pain they want… but in the United States, you have a different attitude towards the electorate and we need to make sure that the economy is growing going into the 2026 election."
Meanwhile, tariffs are "actually taxes on American consumers," said Norquist, adding that when China attacks with reciprocal taxes, they are "punishing their own citizens."
This means tariff wars are self-limiting, as "all the casualties are from friendly fire," he said.
Europe, he added, is "paralyzed" by tariffs because it has issues negotiating as independent countries by being tied up with the European Union.
"They're now part of this big EU blob, and the EU leadership doesn't get elected the way the prime ministers of France, Italy, and Britain do," said Norquist. "They get elected by committees of committees of committees. I worry they're less responsive to popular support."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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