Former US President Donald Trump has vowed to overhaul the American  Tax system and impose heavy tariffs on nations he deems are causing “harm” to the country’s economy. Speaking to House Republicans at a retreat in Florida on Monday, Trump specifically listed India and China as nations imposing heavy tariffs on America and vowed to act against them.

“We’re going to put tariffs on outside countries and outside people that really mean harm to us,” Donald Trump stated, highlighting his “America First” economic strategy.

Corporate Tax Cut Plans

One of the central elements of Trump’s tax plan is an extension of his 2017 tax overhaul, which overwhelmingly favored corporations and richer Americans. He seeks to lower the corporate income tax rate from 21% to 15%, a proposal he made again during the Florida retreat. Trump also plans to undo President Joe Biden’s income tax hikes on the richest Americans and remove taxes from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is currently funding climate change efforts.

Trump also proposed Trump’s tax relief measures targeted at middle- and working-class Americans. These involved exempting earnings tips, Social Security wages, as well as overtime wages from income taxes.

Trump’s Vision for Taxes and Tariffs

During his speech, he proposed a new economic model that decreases taxes for American workers and businesses while imposing higher tariffs on foreign countries. He contended that nations like China, India, and Brazil benefited unfairly at the cost of the American worker.

“Look at what others do. China is a tremendous tariff maker, and India and Brazil and so many other countries,” Trump said, PTI reported.

He would tax foreign countries with tariffs in order to lower taxes at home, as he once said, “Under the America First model, as tariffs on other countries go up, taxes on American workers and businesses will come down.”

Improving Home Production

The former president called for the revival of US manufacturing operations within American companies. He proposed imposing tariffs to be an incentive for companies to manufacture at home in key sectors like pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and steel.

“If you want to stop paying the taxes or the tariffs you have to build your plant right here in America. That’s what’s going to happen at record levels,” Trump stated.

He also said that he would impose tariffs on essential materials and tools used in military production, including steel, aluminum, and copper. He even mourned the loss of America’s capacity to make ships and military weapons, and the country now cannot even manage to build a ship: “There was a time when we made one ship a day, and now we can’t build a ship. It’s all gone to other locations.”

Rare Earth Minerals and Environmental Regulations

He claimed that the country’s potential production of rare earth minerals is suppressed by environmental restrictions. “We have some of the best rare earth anywhere in the world, but we’re not allowed to use it because the environmentalists got there first,” he said. This signaled his intention of loosening some of these regulations and helping boost its domestic production.