Pelosi Has Monumental Meltdown – Republicans Get Revenge!
A decades-old clip of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) speaking on the House floor is going viral again — and for good reason. The 1996 footage shows Pelosi railing against China’s unfair tariffs and demanding that Congress take action to stop the hemorrhaging of American jobs — a message that sounds almost identical to President Donald J. Trump’s current trade policy.
The resurfaced video, captured in June 1996, features Pelosi urging lawmakers to confront the “status quo” trade relationship that was hollowing out U.S. industry. She blasted the imbalance between America’s low tariffs on Chinese goods and Beijing’s punishing duties on American exports.
“In terms of tariffs, it’s interesting to note that the average U.S. MFN [Most Favored Nation] tariff on Chinese goods coming into the United States is two percent, whereas the average MFN tariff on U.S. goods going into China is 35 percent,” Pelosi said at the time.
“Is that reciprocal?” she asked pointedly before denouncing the trade arrangement as a “job loser” for the United States.
Pelosi’s remarks, nearly 30 years old, could have been lifted directly from one of President Trump’s recent speeches defending his reciprocal tariff plan, which aims to stop other nations from exploiting America’s markets while shielding their own.
“In terms of jobs, this is the biggest and cruelest hoax of all,” Pelosi continued. “Not only do we not have market access, not only do they have prohibitive tariffs, not only are our exports not let in very specifically, but China benefits with at least, at least, 10 million jobs from U.S.-China trade.”
She added that the U.S. had gained a mere 170,000 jobs in return, declaring flatly: “The fact is that U.S.-China trade is a job loser.”
That fiery populist message is now resurfacing as Democrats, including Pelosi herself, attack President Trump’s new tariff plan, which mirrors her own 1990s rhetoric.
During his “Liberation Day” address in the White House Rose Garden last week, President Trump laid out his vision for restoring economic fairness through reciprocal tariffs.
“For decades, the United States slashed trade barriers on other countries, while those nations placed massive tariffs on our products and created outrageous non-monetary barriers to decimate our industries,” the President said.
Pelosi and other Democrats have dismissed Trump’s approach as “reckless,” despite once championing the very same trade fairness arguments.
Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), who now criticizes Trump’s tariffs, once defended protectionist measures to safeguard American manufacturing. In a 2008 Senate floor speech, Sanders mocked the globalist obsession with “unfettered free trade,” saying sarcastically:
“What we need is to allow corporate America the freedom — the freedom — to throw American workers out on the street, people who are making $15, $20, $25 an hour, healthcare pensions — throw them out on the street — because somehow, Madame President, we are going to create wealth in America and good paying jobs in America as we shut down plants, we move to China.”
Sanders’ 2008 comments — like Pelosi’s from 1996 — underscore a stunning reversal by the Democratic Party, which once claimed to defend the American worker but now attacks President Trump for doing exactly that.
The viral Pelosi video is more than a historical curiosity — it’s a reminder that before Trump made “America First” mainstream, even Democrats knew that China’s trade manipulation was gutting the U.S. middle class.