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“The most rudimentary understanding of the financial industry tells you that it will just greatly reduce the availability of credit for middle and lower-class Americans. It just will. Price controls don’t work.”
The argument echoes standard free-market talking points, but critics were quick to note that Trump’s proposal is aimed at easing pressure on families crushed by inflation and record consumer debt.
Trump has repeatedly framed his economic agenda around protecting working Americans from Wall Street excesses and foreign exploitation. Pence, by contrast, has returned to the language of establishment conservatism that prioritizes market theory over real-world outcomes.
Pence reverses himself on tariffs
The sharpest break came when Pence turned his fire on Trump’s use of tariffs, despite having supported similar policies during the 2016 campaign and throughout his time as vice president.
In the interview, Pence criticized what he described as a growing embrace of protectionism and blamed labor unions and Trump for pushing tariffs back into the mainstream.
I’ll go on another issue, for years labor unions traditionally embraced protectionist policies, embraced tariffs, but under this president from Liberation Day we’ve seen a full throated embrace.
Tariffs are really price controls, they just make the cost of goods imported in the country artificially high.
That’s how they impact price and as I’ve said many times online it is beginning, I think, to dawn on most Americans that American businesses and American consumers pay American tariffs.
Watch the clip below:
The remarks are likely to infuriate Trump supporters who see tariffs as a powerful tool to protect American workers, punish hostile foreign governments, and reduce dependence on China and other adversarial nations.
Calling on the Supreme Court to intervene
Pence went even further by urging the Supreme Court to step in and dismantle Trump’s tariff authority altogether.
I’m hoping the Supreme Court resets the constitutional balance on that.
With all due respect to the long tradition of the Democratic Party, I started as a Democratic in politics, I became a Republican because of a set of principles, chief among them is free market economics, limited government.
So the embrace of price controls, the embrace of broad based unilateral tariffs is just the latest example. And it is also what Advancing American Freedom has been a leading voice challenging from very early on.
Trump is currently imposing tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows presidents to restrict imports on national security grounds without congressional approval. He is also relying on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which authorizes tariffs in response to unfair foreign trade practices following executive investigations.
Legal challenges to Trump’s authority are now making their way through the courts, with a Supreme Court ruling expected in the coming weeks.
A familiar pattern for Trump supporters
For many conservatives, Pence’s comments feel like a familiar betrayal. The former vice president already lost the trust of the MAGA base when he refused to challenge the 2020 election results. Since then, he has aligned himself with establishment donors, think tanks, and media outlets hostile to Trump’s agenda.
Trump supporters argue that tariffs helped revive American manufacturing, forced multinational corporations to rethink offshoring, and gave the United States leverage in global trade negotiations.
Pence’s call for judicial intervention is being viewed as another attempt to block Trump’s America First policies through elite institutions rather than the ballot box.
As Trump continues to dominate the Republican Party and push an economic agenda centered on national strength and worker protection, Pence’s public opposition only underscores how wide the divide has grown between the MAGA movement and the old Republican establishment.
With a major Supreme Court decision looming, the fight over tariffs is shaping up to be another flashpoint in the broader war over the future of conservatism in America.
