Trump: ‘Wages in [Our] Country Are Too Low!’

Donald Trump, November 10, in the Republican debate:

There is nothing that we do now to win. We don’t win anymore. Our taxes are too high. I’ve come up with a tax plan that many, many people like very much. It’s going to be a tremendous plan. I think it’ll make our country and our economy very dynamic. But, taxes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. People have to go out, they have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can’t do it.

Trump, November 11, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

Mika, we’re becoming a non-competitive country. That’s the problem. We’re becoming non-competitive. I would love to say, “make it $50 an hour, I think it’s great” — you know what, it’s a difficult position politically . . . Our taxes are too high. Our wages are too high. Everything’s too high. We have to compete with other countries.

Trump, November 12, on Fox and Friends:

That was on minimum wage and how we’re going to compete with other countries. They were talking about increasing the minimum wage, and whether it’s taxes or wages, if they’re too high we’re not going to be able to compete with other countries. It’s no longer New York competing with Florida. It’s now the United States competing with Asia and many other places. If you start doing too much, one of the things is salaries and wages and costs of goods, another thing is taxes, our taxes are so high in this country. . . . We have to keep competitive both in wages and, you know, the cost, and we also have to be competitive in the taxes, because our taxes are so high, we can’t compete with other countries.

Later in the day on November 12 in an interview with Bret Baier:

I didn’t say that. Bret, we were talking about the minimum wage, and they said “should we increase the minimum wage?” And I’m saying that if we’re going to compete with other countries we can’t do that because the wages would be too high. I was referring to the minimum wage.

Trump, this morning: