Tariffs are driving US factory boom: Trump

Ankara, July 8 (IANS) President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his tariff policies had triggered an unprecedented wave of manufacturing investment in the United States, arguing that companies across sectors ranging from automobiles to pharmaceuticals and semiconductors were shifting production to America to avoid higher import duties.

Speaking at a news conference after the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump said the United States was experiencing the largest industrial expansion in its history, with businesses investing trillions of dollars in new factories and production facilities.

“We have the biggest investment ever made, $19.2 trillion,” Trump said.

“That’s six times more than we’ve ever had.”

The President credited tariffs for encouraging manufacturers to relocate production to the United States.

“Toyota is leaving Mexico, and they’re going to build one of the biggest car manufacturing plants in the world in Texas,” Trump said.

“That’s because of the tariffs, because we don’t mind if you build in Mexico, but if you build in Mexico, you have to pay a 25 per cent tariff.”

Trump said the same approach was prompting investments across multiple industries.

“Eli Lilly is building plants, Merck, all of them. The drug companies are building. The car companies are building like crazy.”

He warned that companies choosing to manufacture outside the United States would face increasingly steep import duties.

“If they don’t have that, they have to pay 100 per cent, 200 per cent, even 250 per cent if they make a chip or if they make a car, if they make pharmaceuticals,” he said.

Trump said pharmaceutical companies were moving production to the United States “at record levels.”

“So the pharmaceutical companies are moving in at record levels. There’s never been anything like what’s happening,” he said.

The President also highlighted rapid growth in artificial intelligence infrastructure, saying the administration had required technology companies to construct their own electricity generation rather than relying on the existing power grid.

“Some of the AI… we let them build their own electric plants,” Trump said.

“They need, just as an industry, more energy than the entire country produces right now.”

He said the United States remained ahead of China in artificial intelligence and argued that new investment would strengthen that lead.

“We’re leading China in AI,” Trump said.

Trump also pointed to the steel and aluminium industries as examples of the impact of tariffs.

“We’re doing great on steel because we charge tariffs,” he said, adding that the United States would soon host what he described as “the largest aluminium plant in the world” in Oklahoma.

According to Trump, higher tariffs were encouraging manufacturers to establish production in the United States rather than export to the American market.

“If you build your product here, you pay no tariff. If you don’t, you pay a 25 per cent tariff, depending, 35 per cent, sometimes, sometimes 100 per cent, 200 per cent, depending on what the product is.”

Trump has made reshoring manufacturing a central pillar of his economic agenda, arguing that tariffs encourage companies to invest in and create jobs in the United States rather than produce goods overseas.

His administration has increasingly linked trade policy to industrial policy, particularly in sectors considered strategically important, including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and artificial intelligence.

–IANS

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