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Speaking at a trade event last week, former President Donald Trump threatened agricultural equipment maker Deere & Co. with steep tariffs if it moved production to Mexico and boasted of saving American jobs. did. Of course, Trump wasn’t telling the truth. The company still plans to build a factory in Mexico. The company also plans to lay off about 800 American workers.
While we don’t want people to lose their jobs, the manufacturing jobs he said he saved (but didn’t save) could be absorbed because America has a labor shortage. Mexico has a large labor force and many immigrants come to the United States to work. Immigrants are needed to sustain manufacturing and agricultural markets, but helping provide Mexico with more living-wage jobs would help reduce the number of people crossing the border. That would save Trump the cost of rounding up everyone. Additionally, since it shares a border with Mexico, there is no need to transport products made in Mexico across the ocean. This keeps prices low for American consumers. Win-win-win-win-win.
Meanwhile, Trump boasts about the jobs he didn’t save, but if elected he is said to be planning to fire tens of thousands of U.S. government employees who are not loyal to him. Some people may not understand this irony, and he would brag about it too.
Mary Alice Devine, White Bear Lake
During a recent appearance at the Chicago Economic Club, President Trump interrupted Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait during a question about tariffs. President Trump said with absolute certainty that he knew more than any economist, trade official, or business executive. “It’s going to be tough to spend 25 years talking about tariffs being negative and then have someone explain to you that you’re completely wrong,” Trump said as container ships from China enter U.S. ports. When he does so, he seems to be imagining a Chinese government official walking down the pier and handing the port director a Chinese government check payable to the U.S. Treasury. That’s only in Trump’s world, and of course not in the real world, where companies that import goods pay duties. Trump’s arrogance and ignorance, and his stubborn insistence on such economic nonsense, would be pathetic if it weren’t no less dangerous.
