White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to paint US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies as a good thing for Americans during Tuesday’s press briefing.

Leavitt balked when Associated Press reporter Josh Boak asked why Trump was willing to enact “tax hikes in the form of tariffs,” despite promising to slash taxes during his election campaign.

Defending the president’s position, she said, “He’s actually not implementing tax hikes. Tariffs are a tax hike on foreign countries that, again, have been ripping us off.”

“Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people, and the president is a staunch advocate of tax cuts,” Leavitt added, pointing to Trump’s pledge to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime wages and Social Security benefits during his run for reelection.

While Leavitt sounded certain that Trump’s new tariff plans wouldn’t hurt Americans’ pocketbooks, most economists believe the cost of broadly imposed import taxes will inevitably be passed on to consumers.

Tariffs are a tax on imports, and they’re paid by the US company importing the foreign good. Typically, companies pass that cost on to consumers. And as Mark Zandi, the chief economist at credit rating agency Moody’s, told NBC News on Monday, “It costs American jobs.”

Calling the policy a “lose-lose” situation, he added, “There are no winners here in the trade war we’re seemingly being engulfed in.”

The stock market has been turbulent since the first round of Trump’s tariffs went into effect last week, only for the president to suspend tariffs on certain Mexican and Canadian goods just days later.

Stocks took a plunge on Monday amid Wall Street’s worries about the state of the US economy. By the end of the trading day, the S&P 500 had dropped 2.7%, while the Dow Jones dipped down 2.1%, and Nasdaq sank 4% lower.

On Tuesday, the economic situation grew more dire after the president announced plans to double his 25% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% while doubling down on his idea to annex the US’s northern neighbor.

“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”