Trump has embraced tariffs as he tries to appeal to working-class voters who oppose free-trade deals and the outsourcing of factories and jobs.
By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press
SMITHTON, Pa. Donald Trump sat in a large barn in rural Pennsylvania on Monday, asking questions of farmers and offering jokes, but, in a rarity for his campaign events, mostly listening.
The bombastic former president was unusually restrained at an event about China’s influence on the U.S. economy, a roundtable during which farmers and manufacturers expressed concerns about losing their way of life. Behind Trump were large green tractors and a sign declaring “Protect our food from China.”
The event in Smithton, Pennsylvania, gave Trump a chance to drive his economic message against Vice President Kamala Harris, arguing that imposing tariffs and boosting energy production will lower costs. He highlighted Harris’ reversal of a previous vow to ban fracking, a method of producing natural gas key to Pennsylvania’s economy.
And he noted the tractors behind him were manufactured by John Deere, which announced in June it was moving skid steer and track loader manufacturing to Mexico and working to acquire land there for a new factory. Trump threatened the firm with a 200% tariff should he win back the presidency and it opted to export manufacturing to Mexico.
“If they want to build in the United States, there’s no tariff,” he added.
Trump opened the event with some of his usual themes. He declared that in 2020, “We had an election that didn’t exactly work out too good. And it was a disgrace.”
But he then did something unusual: He let others do most of the talking.
When one farmer said recent decades had seen scores of family farms shut down, Trump asked what that meant for overall production. The response was that, thanks to larger farms now operating, total production is actually up but “we are losing the small family farms.”
“I know that, yes,” Trump responded somberly.
