Trump live: Mike Pence slams tariff plan in major intervention against former ally

Donald Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence has the commander-in-chief’s sweeping tariffs in a blistering CNN interview.

Pence sat down with Kaitlin Collins on Monday to deliver one of his most wide-ranging critiques of the president’s second administration.

While the former vice president said he supports using tariffs to pressure China into trade talks, he argued Trump’s broader levies on allies and trade partners will “ultimately harm the American economy.”

“The administration is advancing policies that are not targeted at countries that have been abusing our trade relationship, but rather are essentially new industrial policy that will result in inflation, that will harm consumers and ultimately harm the American economy,” he said.

“My view always is free trade with free nations – that we ought to be engaging our trading partners across the free world to lower trade barriers, lower nontariff barriers and subsidies.”

Pence added that the U.S. “ought to get tough” with authoritarian regimes