With two John Deere tractors as a backdrop, former President Donald Trump called out the agricultural giant in front of a crowd of farmers and promised a crushing response if the company continues to abandon America.
Trump made the comments during a Monday roundtable hosted in Smithton, Pennsylvania.
The policy discussion, hosted by the Protecting America Initiative, took a turn against Deere when Trump noted the two tractors behind him.
“I just noticed behind me John Deere tractors,” Trump said. “I know a lot about John Deere. I love the company.”
Trump was critical of the company’s shift toward manufacturing in Mexico, however. As recently as June of this year, John Deere executives were reportedly planning to move production south of the border after making a handsome $10 billion profit off American farmers.
Trump noted the announcement and warned John Deere that the move would come at a painful price.
“I’m just notifying John Deere right now,” Trump said, “if you do that, we’re putting a 200 percent tariff on everything that you want to sell into the United States, so that if I win, John Deere is going to be paying 200 percent.
“They haven’t started it yet. Maybe they haven’t even made the final decision yet,” he continued, “but I think they have. John Deere is going to -– and anybody else that does this, because it’s hurting our farmers, it’s hurting our manufacturing — you’re going to have a 200 percent tariff put on the product that you make in Mexico, right across the border.”
The scheme — to undercut American workers and strip them of their jobs for the enrichment of foreigners and domestic elites — would presumably crumble to the ground with an instant 200 percent markup from a future Trump administration.
Trump said his move would result in either America making “a lot of money” and John Deere halting the Mexico opening, or the agricultural icon attempting to sell to another country.
“They’re entitled to do that,” Trump said. “If they want to build in the country, in the United States, there’s no tariff. You can go ahead and you can build in any one of the 50 states. You can go ahead.”
John Deere would be welcome to open manufacturing anywhere in the United States, Trump said, “ideally” at locations such as Michigan and South Carolina, where similar industries already exist.
The average Americans living there would certainly welcome this investment.
Trump noted the slippery slope farmers and American workers could both find themselves on as John Deere opts for foreign labor and an inferior product. The former president predicted that recent U.S. plant closures are only a taste of what’s to come.
“The problem is, that’s just the beginning,” Trump warned. “All of a sudden, you’ll hear in a year from now, they’re going to do another one, another one.
“All of a sudden, they’re not going to be in the country anymore.”
Watch Trump’s full comments below.
JUST IN: Donald Trump points at the tractors behind him, tells John Deere that if they move their business to Mexico he is going to put a 200% tariff on them.
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The comments came while Trump was speaking to farmers in Pennsylvania.
“I will tell you that I just noticed… pic.twitter.com/5wpEAuTEo4
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 23, 2024
If Trump wins in November, it could set the tone for the future of U.S. manufacturing in general.
Will the backbone of American industry be chopped up and sold to the cheapest labor available in the world, or will companies be made to uphold the dignity of the Americans who wake up every morning to help build our nation?
