SAVANNAH, Ga. — Former President Donald Trump said economic policies he would enact in a second term would create an environment to "steal" manufacturing jobs that have moved overseas through tax cuts and tariffs.
In a winding speech in front of about 2,500 raucous supporters in the Johnny Mercer Theatre in Savannah on Tuesday, Trump shared his ideas for a "manufacturing renaissance" that he says would bring millions of jobs back to the U.S. from overseas.
"With the vision I'm outlining today, not only will we stop our businesses from leaving for foreign lands, but under my leadership, we're going to take other countries' jobs," he said. "Did you ever hear that expression before? Have you ever heard that we're going to take other countries' jobs? It's never been stated before. We're going to take their factories — and we had it really rocking four years ago — we're going to bring thousands and thousands of businesses and trillions of dollars in wealth back to the good ole' USA."
Trump called for lowering the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% for "those who make their product in the USA," continued a push for "substantial tariffs" on imported goods and proposed special manufacturing zones on federal land "with ultra low taxes and regulations for American producers."
"We're going to use our resources to our benefit," Trump said, also touting fewer environmental regulations around manufacturing. "And it'll be clean and environmentally perfect so that American — and Americans can manufacture everything that we need, the resources we have right here, American soil. It's got everything: it's got the rare earth, it's got the oil, it's got the gas. We have everything — the only thing we don't have is smart people leading our country."
Trump didn't offer specifics on many proposals. Some economists — and fellow Republicans — have warned that key Trump policies, like expanded tariffs, may hurt American consumers through retaliatory tariffs on exports that could in turn make things more expensive for Americans.
"I’m not a fan of tariffs, they raise the prices for American consumers," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday. "I’m more of a free-trade kind of Republican that remembers how many jobs are created by the exports that we engage in. So, I’m not a tariff fan."
The main thrust of Trump's address was tax and manufacturing policy, but like most of his speeches it meandered through his typical campaign stump speech themes.
He attacked Vice President Harris as the "tax queen" whose proposals to tax unrealized investment gains for certain ultra-wealthy Americans would lead to a financial depression, but also riffed that she had "bigger cognitive problems" than President Biden.
He repeated his promise to enact mass deportations of migrants, expounded upon Russia's military history (noting that "they beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon, that's what they do") when discussing the war in Ukraine and recounted the two assassination attempts against him this summer, among other deviations from the topic of the economy.
Notably, Trump did not attack Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, thanking him for being "fantastic" after excoriating Kemp at an Atlanta rally in early August that highlighted the rift between Trump and popular Republicans in the state who did not yield to his demands to overturn the 2020 election.
He did, however, continue to criticize parts of the electric vehicle industry and Biden administration rules around emissions that some Republicans call a "mandate." Georgia has quickly become the country's EV manufacturing capital, including a massive Hyundai compound about 25 miles outside of Savannah, the state's largest-ever economic development project that has seen a nearly $8 billion investment.
Trump's latest visit to Georgia comes as polls show the former president's likeliest path to victory runs through Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania Monday night and heads to North Carolina on Wednesday.
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