In a roughly 50-minute speech yesterday afternoon at a York factory, former President Donald Trump argued that, if elected for another term, he would usher in a U.S. manufacturing boom driven by higher tariffs, lower taxes, better trade deals and a reduction in energy costs.
“Together, we will reclaim our nation’s destiny as the No. 1 manufacturing superpower in the world,” Trump told a crowd of several hundred supporters, including some who work at the factory where he spoke.
The factory, operated by defense contractor Precision Custom Components, makes parts for nuclear submarines.
Before Trump took the podium, Precision president and CEO Gary Butler praised provisions of Trump’s 2017 tax law that aided the company’s purchase of a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment. The purchase led to a $50 million contract and the creation of more than 100 jobs at Precision and other local manufacturers, Butler said.
Why is this happening: The contest between Trump, the GOP candidate for president, and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, will hinge on many factors. They include abortion rights, immigration and the economy.
Harris is up in many polls, but the economy is one area where the polls show Trump has an edge.
And the economy was the topic of his speech yesterday, though the former president also veered into discussions of Harris’s father, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the crime rate in Washington, D.C., and a House GOP report that came out yesterday on President Joe Biden and his family.
Still, it was Trump’s promises to boost U.S. manufacturing, curb inflation and cut energy costs that drew the most applause from the York crowd.
What promises: They include a pledge by Trump to slash energy costs by 50% within his first 12 months in office, though the mechanism for doing so was not spelled out.
“This will help us quickly defeat inflation and make America affordable again,” he said, arguing that Biden and Harris are responsible for the recent spike in consumer costs.
Trump also pledged to end taxation of Social Security benefits and reiterated his support for ending federal taxation of income from tips.
In addition, he took aim at trade deals and regulations that he argued left the U.S. worse off.
“What I’m promising today is a total pro-American overhaul of our tax, regulation and trade systems to promote domestic production and punish those who ship jobs and factories overseas or to places like Mexico,” he said.
As for tariffs — a centerpiece of his previous term in office — he argued that they reduce costs for Americans, though some observers argue tariffs have the opposite effect.
Trump also said he would pursue policies to spur growth of fossil fuel and nuclear energy production in the U.S. “We will embrace all forms of energy,” he said.
What’s next: The campaign for the presidency will kick into an even higher gear this week as Harris accepts the Democratic party nomination in Chicago.
There are likely to be many more visits to Pennsylvania by both Trump and Harris, who unveiled an economic policy agenda last week, including proposals to boost homebuying.
In fact, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, swung through western Pennsylvania over the last weekend.
The economic debate: Harris has painted Trump’s policies as benefitting billionaires and big companies, while Trump lambastes Harris’s proposals as a continuation of what he sees as the failed policies of the Biden administration.
When it comes to Pennsylvania, attention also has fallen on fracking — shorthand for the process of extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation in the Keystone State.
Harris previously opposed fracking but has reversed her stance in recent weeks. Trump has been hammering her on the issue, nonetheless.
But there are the occasional areas of agreement. Both candidates, for example, recently backed policies that would end federal taxation of income derived from tips.
The polls: Trump enjoys an edge over Harris when it comes to economic issues, according to a poll of registered Pennsylvania voters by the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.
Just over half, or 51%, of those surveyed see Trump as prepared to handle the economy, compared to 39% for Harris.
However, Harris leads overall by a tally of 46% to 43%, according to the F&M poll, based on interviews of 920 registered voters in early August. The margin of error is 3.8 percentage points.
The reasons voters support Harris include ant-Trumpism, women’s rights, character, partisanship and democracy, according to the poll.
Economic policy, immigration and partisanship are the top reasons voters gave for supporting Trump.
The background: Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes are considered a must-win for both campaigns.
Pennsylvania voters favored Trump in 2016 but went for Biden in 2020.
Biden decided against running in 2024 for a second term, paving the way for Harris.
