Washington
CNN
—
When former President Donald Trump was challenged at a Tuesday event about the potential economic harms of his proposal for across-the-board tariffs on imported goods, Trump told what sounded like a tariff success story.
He said that in response to his threat to impose hefty tariffs on John Deere if the storied American farm equipment maker went ahead with a plan to move some production from the US to Mexico, the company had just announced it was likely abandoning that outsourcing plan.
Trump said: “Are you ready? John Deere, great company. They announced about a year ago they’re gonna build big plants outside of the United States. Right? They’re going to build them in Mexico … I said, ‘If John Deere builds those plants, they’re not selling anything into the United States.’ They just announced yesterday they’re probably not going to build the plants, OK? I kept the jobs here.”
But a search of news articles and corporate press releases showed nothing about any such John Deere announcement the day prior. And in response to Trump’s story, a John Deere spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News that it had not changed its plans or announced any such changes.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a CNN request for any evidence for the former president’s story.
3rd
Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/16/politics/trump-fact-check-john-deere-economy/index.html