Former US Vice President Mike Pence, in a scathing attack against President Donald Trump’s trade policy, said on Thursday that American companies and consumers are paying the cost of US tariffs.

Pence took to X to highlight that the cost of production of US companies like auto giant Ford has shot up following the increase in tariffs on inputs. US consumers are also ending up paying higher prices for goods due to the tariffs levied by Trump, he added.

The former Vice President emphasised the need for “Free trade with Free nations”. To drive home his point, Pence tagged an article from ‘Reason,’ a US monthly magazine, which stated that Ford had paid $800 million in tariff-related expenses during the second quarter of 2025, despite building most of its cars in America.

“If President Donald Trump’s tariffs were boosting the prospects of American-based manufacturing, then Ford Motor Co. ought to be one of the biggest winners. After all, Ford builds more vehicles in the United States than any other automaker — it churned out 1.8 million of them last year — while employing around 57,000 manufacturing workers at plants across the upper Midwest. It’s a legacy American brand, doing the sort of blue-collar work in the Rust Belt that the Trump administration believes its trade policies will directly benefit,” the article states.

In reality, the tariffs are crushing Ford. The automaker announced this week that it paid $800 million in tariff-related expenses during the second quarter of 2025 (during which it posted its first quarterly loss since 2023), and that it expects the tariffs to reduce annual profits by about $3 billion.

Even for a company that earned an operating profit of $10.2 billion last year, that’s a tremendous blow, the article written by Eric Boehm stated. The Ford management is reported to have held multiple rounds of talks with the Trump administration in an attempt to reverse the setback due to the hike in tariffs.

Mike Pence had earlier stated that President Trump’s tariffs marked the “largest peacetime tax hike on the American people in the history of this country” and contributed to rising costs for consumers.

-IANS

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The post Former US VP Mike Pence Says Trump’s Tariffs Hitting US Firms And Consumers Hard appeared first on The Commune.

A day after Twitter permanently banned US President Donald Trump from the social media platform due to “the risk of further incitement of violence”, American netizens trended “Hang Mike Pence” on the platform.

It is believed that the phrase and its variations began trending on Twitter because of a viral video from the Capitol riot, which showed pro-Trump protesters chanting the phrase. Some protestors built a makeshift gallows and tied a noose on it, while others used tied a noose from a camera cord after they had destroyed the equipment of the assembled journalists and TV crews. Several pro-Trump protestors believe that Vice President Mike Pence betrayed President Trump, after he certified the Electoral College votes — thus giving Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden the victory in the 2020 US elections — despite President Trump asking VP Pence to reject the votes.

WTF why is this allowed to trend?

I get that people have been tweeting it to quote some of the insurrectionists but it shouldn't be allowed to trend. pic.twitter.com/HTlSYnoB5y

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) January 9, 2021

Eventually, Twitter noticed the term trending and blocked it and its variations from trending. “We blocked the phrase and other variations of it from trending,” a spokesperson for Twitter told Fox News. “We want trends to promote healthy discussions on Twitter.”

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With the US presidential election set to take place this year, campaigns and announcements have been heating up between the Democrats and the Republicans. Both the parties are eyeing for a crucial vote bank – Indians, especially Hindus. Hindus have not only become a formidable vote bank in India but also in the United States. This has become conspicuous with Republicans and the Democrats trying to pull the Indians on their side by coaxing the Indians in different ways.

Hinduism is the fourth largest faith in the US and Hindus represent 1% of the population of the population of United States, according to 2016 population data.

The Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden appointed his staunch rival during the Democratic primaries, Kamala Harris, owing to her Indian background in the hope of getting some Indian American votes in the kitty. As soon as the news of Kamala Harris’ appointment came, Trump waived of the restrictions in granting H1B visas, one of the pressing points in India-US relations.

Now both the parties are going out of their way to woo the Hindu votes in their favour. President Donald Trump has said that re-electing him will ‘reduce obstacles to religious freedom’ for Hindus in America. On top of this, the Trump Campaign announced the formation of “Hindu Voices for Trump” on August 14. To give tough to Trump, the Democratic campaign team has said that Biden has made an outreach to the Hindus. Neelima Gonuguntla, a Hindu leader participated in the interfaith service to launch the Democratic National Convention. She recited the Shanti Mantra from the Vedas in Sanskrit, ending with ‘Om shanti, shanti shanti’. She also went on to quote from Mahabharata and concluded with a Chinmaya Mission prayer. The service saw participation of leaders from other faiths like Islam and Sikh too.

“Biden has made outreach to the Hindu community a priority”, the South Asians for Biden platforms was quoted saying. Biden has promised increased access to security grants prosecution of hate crimes committed on temples.  He has also promised to streamline the processing of religious worker visas that benefit Hindu Swamis and religious scholars.

However, Republican Party’s Hindu Voices for Trump seems to be a step ahead. “Hindus for Trump honours contributions by millions of Americans of Hindu faith”, the campaign was quoted saying in the Economic Times.

The Democratic Party has been trying to flaunt its Hindu/Indian credentials after Indians residing in the US raised their brows on the position taken by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Kashmir and Citizenship Amendment Act 2019. The Namaste Trump and Howdy Modi rally in Ahmedabad and Houston respectively brought to centre the significance of Indian votes in US.

The US Presidential elections are scheduled for November 3 where Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris would be contesting against Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence who are seeking a second term.

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