Trump Attends Farming Event and Threatens John Deere with Tariffs

(AmericanProsperity.com) – Donald Trump attended a farming event in Pennsylvania and listened to farmers speak about how they were concerned about losing their way of life due to the U.S. economy and China.

This event allowed Donald Trump to drive his economic messaging against Kamala Harris once again as he argued that imposing tariffs and boosting energy production would help lower costs. He spoke out against the brand John Deere, which moved its skid steer and track loader manufacturing to Mexico and has announced the possibility of building a factory there.

As a result, Donald Trump threatened the company with tariffs of two hundred percent, if he won this year’s presidential election and they opted to export manufacturing to Mexico. Trump added, “If they want to build in the United States, there’s no tariff.”

One thing that was extremely different for Donald Trump at this event was that he let many of the other people do most of the talking and he sat there just to listen. In one instance, a farmer was speaking about how family farms were beginning to get shut down, and Trump responded by asking what that meant for overall production.

The farmer stated that because of larger farms, the total production is up but we are “losing the small family farms.” Trump said, “I know that, yes.”

He continued to say later that he “is not too worried about the people around this table supporting me on election day, but you never know.”

As he listened to farmers talk about energy dependency he stated that he didn’t know that farmers were so energy dependent and “That’s why we need tariffs.”

Trump has continued to embrace tariffs as he tries to appeal to working-class voters who oppose free-trade deals and the outsourcing of factories or jobs. When he took questions from reporters, he got combative as they asked if he was concerned that tariffs on manufacturers like John Deere would increase costs for farmers. He responded by throwing Kamala Harris under the bus but avoiding a direct answer to the questions.