Campbell's Soup VP Of Government Affairs On Tariffs: This Will Ultimately Harm Consumers

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Kelly Johnston, the vice president of government affairs for the Campbell's Soup Company, told The Rich Zeoli Show on 1210AM WPHT that Trump's tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum would "ultimately harm consumers" and that a "tariff, is a tax on consumers."

Johnston said, "when Americans go into stores to buy" cans of Campbell's Soup, "they don't buy one can, they buy five or six at a time", responding to  Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross's claim.

"In the can of Campbell's soup, there's about 2.6 cents worth of steel so if that goes up by 25 percent, that's about six-tenths of one cent."

Johnston continued, "All of the these costs get passed on. This is going to be a cost increase, a tariff is a tax on consumers."

Johnston said that he does realize that "there is a serious problem with overcapacity in steel mostly mining from China" but that he is "not aware that we get any tinplate steel (which is what Campbell Soup uses) from China, so this is a blunderbuss attack that is doing more damage to our allies than to the people creating the problem."