President Donald Trump called former President Ronald Reagan “bad on trade” in a Tuesday interview, pointing to a moment when he said Reagan “folded” to Japan in auto industry negotiations.
“I liked Ronald Reagan, but Ronald Reagan was bad on trade,” Trump told Larry Kudlow in a Fox Business interview. “He had the big shootout with Japan, and he folded, and they came in and took our car market.”
Reagan famously negotiated voluntary export restraints with Japan to put a quota on their automobile exports to the United States, which many trade analysts argue led to a spike in car prices for consumers. Trump, who favors tariffs, told Kudlow that “everybody has problems” and Reagan “was not good on trade.”
“I’m a fan of his, and I thought he just sort of had a great presence. But on trade, if you look at every president we have over the last 50 years was bad on trade. Every single one. But I’m not bad on trade. I’m real good on trade,” Trump said.
In October 2025, Trump and Reagan’s opposing viewpoints on trade took center stage after a Canadian advertisement aired showing Reagan endorsing free trade, causing Trump to pause his trade talks with the U.S.’s northern neighbor. Last May, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also criticized Reagan’s trade policies.
In his Tuesday evening interview, Trump also spoke about a conversation he had with the “prime minister” of Switzerland, likely referring to then-President Karin Keller-Sutter, during which she was “very aggressive” and kept saying they were a “small country” as she discussed the impact of tariffs on her nation. Trump said it was after that phone call that he raised their tariff percentage from 30% to 39%.
“It was a 30% and I didn’t really like the way she talked to us. So instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39%,” Trump said. “Then, I got inundated by people from Switzerland, and I figured, you know what, we’ll do something that’s a little bit more palatable, at least now.”
JOHNSON EFFORT TO BLOCK TRUMP TARIFF REPEAL VOTES HITS GOP RESISTANCE
After raising the reciprocal tariff rate on Switzerland to 39% in August, Trump lowered it to 15% in November as part of a joint deal between the two countries and Liechtenstein.
News of a bad phone call over trade negotiations that occurred between Trump and Keller-Sutter broke in August.
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