Nearly 40 Years Ago, Donald Trump Blamed This Country For His Tariff Push — And It’s Not China: 'I'd Make Our Allies Pay Their Fair Share' - Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM)

A resurfaced 1988 interview of President Donald Trump has revealed that the then-businessman had been warning about the ‘Trump tariffs’ long before they became a reality.

What Happened: In the interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Trump voiced his frustration with U.S. allies, asserting that they should "pay their fair share" in trade relations with the United States. He specifically pointed to Japan and Kuwait as examples of nations benefiting at the expense of the U.S.

“They knock the hell out of our companies,” Trump said, adding, “I’d make our allies, forgetting about our enemies… pay their fair share. We are a debtor nation.”

Trump criticized Japan’s trade practices, stating, “If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something forget about it… They come over here, they sell their cars their VCRs, they knock the hell out of our companies.”

He argued that ‘free trade’ didn't exist when Japan flooded U.S. markets with products while making it nearly impossible for American businesses to operate in Japan.

He also targeted Kuwait, stating, “Kuwait, they live like kings… and yet they’re not paying. We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren’t they paying us twenty-five percent of what they’re making? It’s a joke.”

Barbara Res, a former executive vice-president at the Trump Organization, recalled Trump believing that the U.S. wasn't receiving sufficient benefits in exchange for providing military support to its ally Japan, as per a previous BBC article. He also found it increasingly challenging to strike deals with groups of Japanese businessmen back then, revealed Res.

Why It Matters: Meanwhile, Trump is yet to strike a trade deal with Japan and several other nations as the 90-day deadline of the ‘Liberation Day’ tariff looms. So far, the U.S. has inked a deal with the U.K. and finalized the framework of a trade truce with China. On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Japan called off a high-level meeting with the U.S. after the Trump administration demanded higher defense spending from Japan.

The Trump administration’s tariffs have been a subject of controversy and severe criticism. A federal appeals court recently allowed President Trump’s sweeping tariffs to remain in effect while reviewing lower court decisions that blocked the duties on constitutional grounds.

These tariffs have been linked to inflation by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who noted that the inflation median forecast has risen due to the effects of the tariffs.

Notably, Japanese automakers like Toyota Motor Corp. TM have been impacted due to Trump’s auto tariffs and indicated that the company is announcing a price hike on certain vehicles sold in the U.S.