A decades-old TV interview featuring Donald Trump has gone viral following the U.S. president’s latest tariff announcement. In the resurfaced 1988 clip from The Oprah Winfrey Show, Trump criticized U.S. trade policies, accusing allies like Japan and Kuwait of taking advantage of American economic power without paying their “fair share.”
Trump’s 1988 warning on Japan’s trade practices
During the interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Trump aimed at Japan’s dominance in the U.S. market, claiming that American companies were suffering due to unfair competition.
“They knock the hell out of our companies,” he said, referring to Japan’s trade policies. He argued that, if given the chance, he would force allies to contribute more.
“I’d make our allies, forgetting about our enemies—the enemies you can’t talk to easily—I’d make our allies pay their fair share. We are a debtor nation. Something is going to happen over the next number of years with this country because you can’t keep on losing two hundred billion, and yet we let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets. It’s not free trade,” he stated.
Trump also described Japan as an extremely closed-off market, where American companies had little opportunity to compete.
“If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it, just forget about it. It’s almost impossible. They don’t have laws against it, they just make it impossible. They come over here, they sell their cars, their VCRs, they knock the hell out of our companies,” he remarked.
Kuwait and Middle East trade criticism
Trump also turned his focus to the Middle East, particularly Kuwait, accusing the nation of benefiting from American military and economic support without reciprocation.
“Kuwait, they live like kings. The poorest person in 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,” he said.
The Oprah Winfrey Show Interview resurfaces amid Trump’s new tariffs
The resurfaced clip has drawn fresh attention as Trump enforces a new round of tariffs, including a baseline 10% import tax on most goods. Countries with large trade surpluses with the U.S. face even steeper penalties, though Canada and Mexico have been granted exemptions under existing agreements.