Beshear warns Trump tariffs would hurt Kentucky's economy
FRANKFORT — Democratic Gov. Andy Besehar warned Thursday that Kentucky's economy would suffer in a trade war and said the state's Republican U.S. senators also disagree with President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs.
'When you have the two Republican senators and the Democratic governor all saying something's a bad idea, it's because it's a bad idea,' Beshear said during his weekly news conference.
Hours later Trump announced that he was suspending new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada until April 2. The tariffs had taken effect Tuesday, and on Wednesday he exempted automakers from having to pay them for a month.
Beshear said he's been having conversations with Canadian officials, urging them to spare Kentucky and focus any retaliatory measures 'on places and areas where people aren't speaking up.'
Canadian provinces already have responded to Trump's actions by pulling U.S.-made liquor off store shelves — a move that Kentucky-based Brown-Forman called 'worse than tariffs.'
U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said in a recent CBS interview that 'tariffs drive the cost of everything up' and would 'be paid for by American consumers.' U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said on X last month that Republicans 'won the last election by complaining about Democrats' policies, which gave us high prices. Tariff lovers will be forced to explain the persistence of high prices …'
Trump campaigned on a promise to enact tariffs as leverage to stop the flow of immigrants and fentanyl across the U.S. border.
Beshear expressed less concern about Republican state lawmakers' efforts to replicate the efforts of billionaire and special government employee Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency in Kentucky.
The Senate passed a bill on Wednesday to launch KOGE, or the Kentucky Office of Government Efficiency, in the auditor of public accounts' office.
He called KOGE 'a Kentucky version of DOGE, except it can't do any of the things that the federal version does.' Beshear was concerned about the bill's addition of subpoena powers to the auditor's office. DOGE has been firing federal employees and freezing government payments.
'I've heard some comments coming out of that (auditor's) office that have seemed pretty political, and so my hope is that any changes that we make, especially that confers more power to any constitutional office, that we're being careful in how we're doing it and that it's going to end up being used for the betterment of the people of Kentucky and not as a political tool.'
Beshear pointed to a conflict between his administration and Ball's office that resulted in a court order over the ombudsman's office. Last year, the ombudsman was moved to Ball's office from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
Around the same time as Beshear's press conference, the House Committee on State Government passed a resolution from Rep. T.J. Roberts, R-Burlington, to establish the Kentucky Discipline of Government Efficiency, or KY DOGE.
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