‘Accept the pain’: Lindsey Graham defends Trump’s escalating trade war with China

As markets have reacted with turmoil to President Trump’s escalating threats against China, one of the president’s staunchest allies in Congress had a stark message for American businesses and consumers: “Accept the pain” that comes with a trade war.

“We’ve just got to accept the pain that comes with standing up to China,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in a Sunday appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “How do you get China to change without creating some pain on them and us? I don’t know.”

Trump caused strife in trading rooms on Friday when he promised a 5-percentage-point increase on all existing and planned Chinese tariffs and then “ordered” U.S. firms to stop doing business in China. Those threats came at an already volatile moment, with American indicators suggesting a potential recession and Trump questioning on Twitter whether Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell is an “enemy” of the United States.

View the complete August 26 article by Tim Elfrink on The Washington Post website here.