Governor Kelly Armstrong on The Jay Thomas Show
BISMARCK, N.D. – North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong isn’t concerned the state’s Legacy Fund lost $1 billion right after President Donald Trump announced tariffs on so-called “Liberation Day” earlier this month.
North Dakota Retirement and Investment Office Director Jodi Smith announced the losses at a legislative committee. The Legacy Fund invests North Dakota’s oil and gas revenue.
“When your primary sector is ag and energy, you’re in a pretty risk-filled economy. The Legacy Fund is designed to withstand these things. Of course when you have bad market downturns you’re going to have investment downturns. I’m not worried about it. It’s going to create tremendous benefits for North Dakota,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong added he supports Trump’s newer proposal of 145 percent tariffs on China than the original “Liberation Day” tariffs saying isolating China is important as they’re the U.S.’ number one strategic adversary.
“The retaliatory tariffs from China are going to hurt North Dakota ag producers. We saw them do that in 2018. We have talked to the administration, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright and making sure they know we’ll keep them informed when we star hearing what’s going on and making sure that we still feed and fuel the world in North Dakota and we can’t survive two really bad years without some help,” Armstrong said.
