In a nearly 90 minute speech in Georgia on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump pledged to go further than he did in his first term in cutting taxes on corporations and applying tariffs on imports to incentivize domestic manufacturing.
While corporations would see a lighter tax bill, the promised tariffs — which are opposed by most congressional Republicans as well as Democrats — would result in higher costs for U.S. consumers, according to economists who spoke to Spectrum News and analyses by both center-right and center-left organizations.
“Now we're cutting the business tax from 21% to 15% which makes us the most competitive tax anywhere in the planet, but only for those who make their product in the USA,” Trump said in Savannah, Ga. “At 21 we were pretty good. At 15, we’re the most competitive. People are going to be pouring in, companies are going to be pouring in.”
Prior to Trump's presidency, the federal corporate tax rate was 35%, but his 2017 tax legislation dropped that to 21%. Harris has proposed raising it back up to 28%.
Trump said the goal of his policies was to entice foreign companies to move their manufacturing to the U.S. and leave companies that moved their manufacturing abroad “filled with regret and come springing back to our shores.” He specifically promised a 100% tariff on cars made in Mexico, after promising a 200% tariff on those cars just last week.
“Here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth: 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,” Trump vowed. “It all goes away if you don't make your product here and hire American workers for the job. If you don't make your product here, then you will have to pay a tariff, a very substantial tariff, when you send your product into the United States.”
The Harris campaign recruited billionaire businessman Mark Cuban and Teamsters National Black Caucus chair James Curbeam before Trump’s speech on Tuesday to slam the former president’s economic proposals.
“He says things off the top of his head that tend to often be ridiculous, if not insane,” Cuban said on a press call, zeroing in on Trump’s promise on Monday to level 200% tariffs on John Deere products if the agricultural equipment manufacturer follows through with plans to move some of its manufacturing to Mexico. Cuban argued that coupling a tariff on John Deere with the former president’s idea to impose a 10-20% across-the-board tariff on products from China would make it cheaper for Chinese manufacturers to compete with the 187-old American business.
“You literally face the destruction of one of the most historic companies in the United States of America,” Cuban continued. “It just goes to show that he doesn’t think these things through.”
He also contrasted Trump’s proposed tariffs on China, which would levy a tax on any product made in China, with the more targeted, industry-specific tariffs used by the Biden administration and past presidents.
“There’s nothing wrong with strategic tariffs. Where it turns into lunacy is when you do across-the-board tariffs,” he said. “That’s just inflationary, and that’s just a tax on the American people.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell shared a similar position when asked by reporters on Tuesday.
“I'm not a fan of tariffs. They raise the prices for American consumers,” McConnell said. “I'm more of a free trade kind of Republican that remembers how many jobs are created by the export that we engage in, so I’m not a tariff fan.”
Trump also used his remarks in Savannah to air his usual list of grievances against Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden, the ABC News debate moderators from earlier this month and other political foes, misspeaking several times. Notably, the 78-year-old referred to Charlottesville, Va., as “Charlottestown” and boasted of giving Americans “the greatest, the biggest tax hikes in the history of our country.”
The appearance in Georgia comes as Democrats have raised questions about Trump’s mental acuity and endurance, mirroring the discussion about Biden’s age and ability before he dropped out of the race earlier this year. Trump himself dedicated some of the speech to discussing Biden’s age and how he looks in a bathing suit at 82.
“It's pretty sad when you think about it, right? We will, you know, we laugh, but it’s sad and nobody told us he was cognitively impaired. [Harris] didn’t say it,” Trump said. “And that puts our country at great danger, because [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] is at the top of his game. All of these guys that we're competing against are all at the top of their game. [Biden is] not. He hasn't been for a long time.”
He accused Harris of having “bigger cognitive problems” than Biden and, in a rare moment of personal transparency, said “I find it very hard to sleep. I get so many ideas. I’m thinking all the time.”
It was Trump’s second day in a row with a rally scheduled and his third in the last four days, with another rally scheduled for North Carolina on Wednesday afternoon. His campaign has picked up the pace after a relatively quiet period compared to his previous efforts for president. Eight years younger, Trump held 72 rallies between June and September 2016, according to an analysis by Axios. This year, he’s held less than half of that, Axios found.
Unlike 2016 — and 2020 when he held 15 rallies in September amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — Trump is campaigning in the wake of two assassination attempts. He recounted both in detail for a full 10 minutes of his speech on Tuesday.
“I've had a very interesting experience for the last couple of months. My profession is a very dangerous one,” Trump said. “If you think of it, it's far more dangerous than auto races. One-tenth of 1% of the auto racers die. One-tenth of 1% and a little more of the bull riders — that looks nasty, doesn't it? — die. Presidents, I don't want to tell you the percentage, but it happens to be a very dangerous profession.”
Spectrum News’ Susan Carpenter contributed to this report.