Former Fox News star Bill O’Reilly spoke on NewsNation about President Trump’s decision to levy a 104 percent tariff on China — this preceded Trump’s decision late yesterday to raise the tariff on Chinese goods to 125 percent — and complained about how mainstream media is covering the trade war. (NOTE: The trade war is still on, even as Trump announced on Wednesday that he would pause planned “reciprocal” ” tariffs on most nations for 90 days.)
Without saying her name, O’Reilly honed in on coverage by CNN anchor Erin Burnett, whom he described as “a very smart woman — she’s an ideologue for the left, but she’s not a nut.”
As seen below, Burnett spoke with the former Treasury official whose work the Trump White House apparently used to justify its tariff calculations, and who says they got his formula “very wrong.” O’Reilly said of Burnett: “To my shock, she was almost sympathizing with China [during the exchange].”
The former Treasury official who the Trump White House used to justify its tariffs says they his formula very wrong.” Watch @ErinBurnett break out the white board and crunch the numbers. pic.twitter.com/RnB6AOABmM
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) April 9, 2025
O’Reilly, who is the polar opposite of sympathetic toward China, spoke about the intensifying trade war between the U.S. and China as a “throwdown.” He said trade wasn’t the only weapon to be concerned about either.
O’Reilly told viewers that China is building its military using U.S. dollars — “every year the U.S. sends $300 billion more to China than they send to us” and that the U.S. is “financing their military by the trade deficit.”
Bill O’Reilly rips CNN Host Erin Burnett for sympathizing with China after President Trump threaten 104% tariffs.
“She was almost sympathizing with China. Let me tell you about China. They’re the worst cheaters on the planet. They steal. Every year the United States sends 300… pic.twitter.com/NFSORjxxvR
— DeVory Darkins (@devorydarkins) April 8, 2025
[Note: According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative: “U.S. total goods trade with China were an estimated $582.4 billion in 2024. U.S. goods exports to China in 2024 were $143.5 billion, down 2.9 percent ($4.2 billion) from 2023.”]
O’Reilly asserts that China is on a collision course with a major military conflict, “building that military to a point where war will be inevitable, because you are stockpiling weapons and men to an extent that you don’t need to be defensive. Trump knows this.”
While MAGA supporters are voicing their agreement with O’Reilly on X, others are pushing back on his tariff narrative with comments including, “You understand that American consumers pay those tariffs not China? It’s wild that Republicans are now pro-tax anti-free trade whack jobs.”
Even many economists who disagreed with Trump’s more universal tariffs do see the justification for the China tariffs, though there is predictable disagreement about the rates.
Yet while there is some agreement that the China-U.S. trade situation needs a reset, one commenter chimed in citing a major challenge in getting this done: “He may be right, but almost everything in American homes was made in China. To make a point, we would have to go cold turkey and not buy anything from China. What’s the odds of that happening?”