In 1996 speech, Nancy Pelosi calls for reciprocal trade with China: “Do something about this US-China trade relationship that is a job loser for the United States.”
Oh, how quickly they forget.
A nearly three-decade-old clip has resurfaced showing a much younger Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) giving a speech in the House of Representatives where she demanded reciprocal tariffs against China.
“How far does China have to go? How much more repression, how big a trade deficit and loss of jobs for the American worker, and how much more dangerous proliferation has to exist before members of this House of Representatives will say, ‘I will not endorse the status quo?’” she questioned her colleagues in a scorching lecture.
“In terms of tariffs, I think it’s interesting to note that the average US MFN [Most Favored Nation] tariff on Chinese goods coming into the United States is 2%, whereas the average Chinese MFN tariff on US goods going into China is 35%,” she continued. “Is that reciprocal?”
Her message then was clear: America First. However, the Democratic Party has completely reversed its stance on the concept of fair trade, which Pelosi once embraced.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump declared April 2, 2025 as “Liberation Day,” where he announced his policy of reciprocal tariffs against all U.S. trading partners.
The tariffs, which aim to correct decades of unfair trade practices that have disadvantaged American workers and industries, led to immediate political fallout with countries immediately responding and American Democrats losing their minds.
Several countries immediately announced plans to reduce or eliminate tariffs on U.S. imports on April 2, within hours of President Trump’s announcement. Israel, India, Vietnam, and Switzerland were the first to flinch, signaling they would reduce or remove tariffs on U.S. imports altogether.
China quickly retaliated, announcing 34% tariffs on all goods imported from the United States that are set to take effect on April 10. Trump, however, hit back at China with a blistering warning, declaring, “CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED — THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!”
Trump revealed on Thursday that “every country” had called the White House hoping to make a deal, and “they’ll do anything for us.”
Despite the new leverage America had so rapidly gained, 47 Democrats and four unfaithful Republican Senators voted to block U.S. tariffs against Canada Wednesday evening. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and far-left Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) also introduced “The Trade Review Act of 2025” on Thursday to strip the President’s power to impose duties on foreign imports.
Pelosi also responded to the new policy on Wednesday, saying, “Donald Trump’s reckless tariffs will cause chaos in our economy, raise prices for consumers and hurt hardworking American families.” She continued, “This is not a strategy — it’s the largest tax hike on the American people in history.”
However, in June 1996, Pelosi showed a chart, much like President Trump’s, outlining the unfair trade between China and the U.S. as she highlighted the then-$34 billion trade deficit and other issues such as intellectual property theft. She was so enraged that she repeatedly stammered out of frustration.
WATCH:
Pelosi: How far does China have to go? How much more repression, how big a trade deficit and loss of jobs for the American worker, and how much more dangerous proliferation has to exist before members of this House of Representatives will say, ‘I will not endorse the status quo.’ As I mentioned, it’s about jobs, proliferation, and human rights. And there are those who say we shouldn’t link human rights and trade and proliferation and trade; I disagree. But if we just want to take up this issue on the basis of economics alone, Indeed, China should not receive most favored nation status for several reasons that I’d like to go into now.
I’d like to call the attention of our colleagues to this chart on the status quo that the business community is asking each and every one of you— to each and every one of us to endorse today. Right now, we have a $34 billion trade deficit with China, the 1995 figure. It will be over $40 billion for 1996. Since the Tiananmen Square Massacre, this figure has increased 1,000%, from three and a half billion then, to about $34 billion now. In terms of tariffs, I think it’s interesting to note that the average US MFN [Most Favored Nation] tariff on Chinese goods coming into the United States is 2%, whereas the average Chinese MFN tariff on US goods going into China is 35%. Is that reciprocal?
On exports, China only allows certain industries into China—of US industries into China, and therefore only 2% of US exports are allowed into China. On the other hand, the US allows China to flood our markets with a third of their exports, and that will probably go over 40%, and it’s limitless because we have not placed any restriction. In terms of jobs, this is the biggest and cruelest hoax of all! Not only do we not have market access, not only do they have prohibitive tariffs, not only are our exports not let in very specifically, but China benefits with at least, at least 10 million jobs from US China trade.
The President, in his statement requesting this special waiver, said that China trade supports 170,000 jobs in the United States, 170,000 jobs, whereas our imports from China support a mill— 10 million jobs at least. The fact is that US-China trade is a job loser, and one of the reasons that it is is because, in order—well, first, let me just make another point, and that is that our colleagues on the other side of this issue will say the trade with China, exports to China have increased three times in the last 10 years. They have, but they fail to mention that exports—imports from China have increased 11 times, thereby leading to this huge trade deficit. The other issue, in addition, if, if intellectual property is a $2 billion, $3 billion loss, technology transfer is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. If you want to sell to China, your products into China, the Chinese insist that you open a factory there.
They take, misappropriate your technology, open factories of your— their own, and then say to you, ‘now we want to see your plan for export.’ That’s as simply as I can say it briefly. But the fact is, this isn’t about products made in America. The Chinese want American products that are made in China. And the most serious of these transfers of technology are in the airline industry, where Boeing, tail sections, tail sections of the Boeing 737s were mostly made in Wichita, Kansas. Now they are made in Shen Province, where workers make $50 a month. And they had the transfer of the technology and the transfer of the jobs has taken place.
General Motors, Ford, they’re all fighting to get in to build factories there so they can make parts there. They want MFN so they can get those parts back into the United States. So, we are exporting, not low tech jobs and textile jobs; we’re exporting our technology. Now, if you take a country the size of China, with the cheap, the very cheap, and in some instances, slave labor, the lack of market access, the rip off of our intellectual property, the transfer of technology, a country that is not willing to play by the rules in any respect in this trade relationship, you have a serious threat, not only to our relationship, but to the industrialized world. And if there’s one message that I want our colleagues to understand today and our constituents, is that on this day, your member of Congress could have drawn the line to say to the President of the United States, ‘do something about this US-China trade relationship that is a job loser for the United States.’
And this brings us to the point that others have said, ‘well, we can’t isolate China.’ Do you think for one minute that with 10 million jobs at least, and 35 billion, and be over $40 billion this year, in a trade surplus, all those billions of dollars in surplus that the Chinese are going to walk away? Where are they going to take 35 to 40% of their exports? Who’s going to buy them? This is what sustains the regime, the funding, and the jobs. They can’t have those people out of work. They have to be at work, exporting to the United States.
The post FLASHBACK: Nancy Pelosi Rails Against Unfair Trade and Theft, Demands Reciprocal Tariffs Against China in 1996 House Floor Speech – “This is The Biggest and Cruelest Hoax of All!” (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
