“To the autoworkers in Michigan, Georgia, and all other parts of our country, I am pinpointing you for greatness,” former President Donald Trump said in a campaign speech on Tuesday.
In a rally held in Savannah, Georgia, Trump laid out his economic vision for the United States if he is reelected in November. His message focused on reviving domestic manufacturing.
Georgia is a key swing state that’s being courted heavily by both Trump and his Democratic opponent for the presidency, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump called his economic policies “new American industrialism,” where the focus will be on bringing offshored manufacturing jobs back to the United States. The 45th president said that, for years, other countries have stripped American jobs and wealth, but added he would “put America first.”
He said that under his leadership “American workers will no longer be worried about losing [their] jobs to foreign nations. Instead, foreign nations will be worried about losing their jobs to America.”
While many vital industries have moved to other counties in recent years, Trump said, he has a plan to bring them back and restore American prosperity.
“This New American Industrialism will create millions of jobs, massively raise wages for American workers, and make the United States into a manufacturing powerhouse,” he said. “We will be able to build ships again. We will be able to build airplanes again. We will become the world leader in robotics. The U.S. auto industry will once again be the envy of the planet.”
To make that happen, the former president said he would incentivize American companies to hire American workers while reducing burdens to economic growth:
I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden, and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet—but only if you make your product here in America and hire American workers for the job.
If you don’t make your product here, then you will have to pay a very substantial tariff when you send your product into the United States.
Trump proposed lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% for companies that make their products in the U.S. Harris has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28%. The rate currently is 21%.
The former president said that his policies—which focus on rebuilding American industry and creating energy independence—would strengthen the American economy, but that Harris’ policies were too “radical” and would damage the country. He said that while Harris was fine with jobs going overseas, she would place heavy taxes on American companies.
“Kamala the tax queen is demanding a 33% tax hike on all domestic production,” Trump said. This will make companies flee elsewhere, he said.
Worse, Trump said that Harris’ proposal to tax unrealized capital gains would be catastrophic and would send the country into a depression.
“This woman is grossly incompetent,” he said.
He said that the Biden-Harris administration has imported millions of illegal aliens who are lowering wages and taking American jobs.
“So, as we create millions of new manufacturing jobs here in Georgia and nationwide, we will make sure these jobs go to American citizens, not illegal aliens,” Trump said.
Heritage Foundation economic policy expert E.J. Antoni wrote in June that while unemployment has been falling in recent years, most of the job growth has been among foreign-born workers.
“Over the last year, employment rose 637,000 for foreign-born workers, but fell 299,000 for native-born Americans,” Antoni wrote. “There are fewer native-born Americans employed today than before the [COVID-19] pandemic; meaning, American workers have made no progress in over four years. In fact, they’ve fallen behind.”
