Mark Cuban Stumps For Harris

Photo: Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein

LA CROSSE, WI (REUTERS) – Billionaire Mark Cuban chided fellow billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on October 17 for his proposal to issue fresh tariffs on most Chinese goods, arguing it will be Americans who will pay the bill, not the Chinese.

Cuban appeared with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Wisconsin and is set to hold a town hall for her in Phoenix before heading to Michigan.

He wasn’t the only billionaire on the campaign trail: Tesla  CEO Elon Musk was in Pennsylvania mobilizing Trump voters.

Trump’s plan to impose fresh tariffs on up to 60% of goods from China in a bid to boost U.S. manufacturing is a “crazy notion” that will punish consumers who will end up paying the bill, Cuban said.

“This man has so little understanding of tariffs, he thinks that China pays for that. This is the same guy who also thought that Mexico would pay for the wall,” Cuban said.

“Did Mexico pay for that wall?” Cuban asked the crowd, who responded, “no.”

Trump has maintained that his trade policies – which call for pricey tariffs on goods not only from rivals such as China but allies such as the European Union – would revitalize American manufacturing and yield enough revenue to ease concerns about a ballooning deficit.

“To me, the most beautiful word in the world is ‘tariff,'” Trump said on in a sometimes-tense interview at the Economic Club of Chicago.

Cuban said, “Donald Trump is the Grinch that wants to steal your Christmas,” he said. “The Grinch doesn’t understand how tariffs work… The Grinch is the one that’s going to be putting these small businesses out of business.”

Unlike Musk, who has donated nearly $75 million to Trump-aligned groups, Cuban is not a political donor. Federal Election Commission records show a single, $1,000 donation to Congressman Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, in 2002 under Cuban’s name.