Former President Donald Trump, flanked by two John Deere tractors, said Monday that if the company moves manufacturing to Mexico, he will impose a 200-percent tariff on the products it imports to the United States.
Trump’s pledge to protect American manufacturing jobs came during a roundtable in Smithton, Pennsylvania, with farmers, former Acting Director of National Security Ric Grenell, Republican Pennsylvania Senate nominee Dave McCormick, and former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY).
“I just noticed behind me John Deere tractors. I know a lot about John Deere. I love the company, but, as you know, they’ve announced a few days ago that they’re going to move a lot of their manufacturing business to Mexico,” Trump said.
“I’m just notifying John Deere right now: If you do that, we’re putting a 200-percent tariff on everything that you want to sell into the United States,” Trump warned.
As Breitbart News reported, John Deere announced hundreds of layoffs in June that took effect August 30, as the company prepared layoffs at a plant in East Moline, Illinois, and in Davenport, Iowa.
“They haven’t started it yet. Maybe they haven’t even made the final decision yet, but I think they have,” he said.
I am honestly a little curious… People on the left must surely agree with this…? It is economic nationalism: keeping working class jobs at home for the benefit of the local workers.
Obviously, there’s a lot more that should be done if you are pro-worker, but it is also interesting that much of the Left dismisses these policies and sees it as unfeasible to maintain the American working class and revitalize the rust belt.
Without getting too deep into the intracacies, as a liberal, my thoughts are:
I would certainly prefer the jobs stay in the US
I don’t know that Trump - assuming he were to win the election - can impose such tariffs based on USMCA. Like, I literally an bit an expert in that trade agreement, but there may be restrictions
Tariffs don’t generally work like Trump claims they do. The consumer ultimately pays them almost every time. In this case, I don’t know enough about tractor manufacturing, but there would have to be a viable alternative company manufacturing in the US for this proposed tariff to work as Trump seemingly intends.
Where tariffs can be really effective is in newer industries where there is limited competition and a tariff can directly level the playing field between a nascent US company and a foreign company where they have either a significant competitive lead or where that foreign company is getting incentovized by their government. Think the earlier days of solar panels or wind power, where the US could have helped prevent China from taking a huge lead in those industries and positioned US companies as the leaders. Tariffs work best when you have 2 major players and you can price one of them out early (in particular, before the manufacturing equipment and skilled labor have already left).
There’s a lot of variables at play. I just don’t see it being as simple as it’s portrayed
Wikipedia’s list of US tractor manufacturers has 34 entries. If JD tractors suddenly become 3 times the price, people will go elsewhere.
Trump is a moron swinging a hammer, but in this case a hammer will probably work. Issues arise when tariffs are put on things that aren’t domestically produced.