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Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller is reiterating his opposition to excessive tariffs in the wake of President Donald Trump imposing reciprocal tariff rates as high as 54%.
Druckenmiller says in a post on the social media platform X that he does “not support tariffs exceeding 10%.”
The former hedge fund manager says he made his stance on tariffs “abundantly clear” in an interview with CNBC about two months ago. At the time, Druckenmiller said that tariffs of up to 10% would assist the US in raising revenues.
“In a perfect world, I would not be for a 10% tariff, but we’re not in a perfect world. As you know, we have a big fiscal problem – mandatory spending plus interest expenses are literally 100% of revenues right now. And both sides of the aisle have said they are not about to cut entitlements, which is the elephant in the room.
Because of that, we need pay-fors. So our main choices are an income tax and a consumption tax, like tariff. So when I say tariffs are the lesser of the two evils in terms of those two, because we have a fiscal problem, we need revenues. Tariffs will generate revenues.
We also have a private savings problem in this country – they’re far too low. So I think a lot of economists who are out raising the alarm bells about tariffs would probably be fine with a consumption tax.
To me, tariffs are simply a consumption tax that foreigners pay for some of it. Now, there’s a risk of retaliation. But as long as we stay in the 10% range and I think so-called fear of Donald Trump, I think the risks are overblown relative to the rewards. The rewards are not high, it’s more like they’re the lesser of two evils.”
Last week, President Trump signed an executive order imposing a 10% tariff on all imported goods entering the US. He also issued a proclamation detailing “reciprocal tariffs” on dozens of specific countries, effective April 9th, with rates totaling up to 54% on China.
