Trump visits Ford plant and defends his tariffs, hoping to counter jitters about the economy

The president chatted with assembly line workers as well as the automaker’s executive chairman, Bill Ford, a descendent of Henry Ford. “All U.S. automakers are doing great," Trump said.

He later gave a speech to the Detroit Economic Club that was meant to be focused on his economic policies but veered heavily to other topics as well. Those included falsely claiming to have won Michigan three times (he lost the state in 2020 to Joe Biden) and recalling the snakes that felled workers during U.S. efforts to build the Panama Canal more than a century ago.

“The results are in, and the Trump economic boom has officially begun,” the president said at the MotorCity Casino. He argued that “one of the biggest reasons for this unbelievable success has been our historic use of tariffs.”

Trump falsely insists tariffs haven't increased costs

The president said that tariffs were “overwhelmingly” paid by “foreign nations and middlemen” — even as economists say steep import taxes are simply passed from overseas manufactures to U.S. consumers, helping exacerbate fears about the rising cost of living.

“It’s tariffs that are making money for Michigan and the entire country,” the president said, insisting that “every prediction the critics made about our tariff policy has failed to materialize.”

But voters remain worried about the state of the economy. The Michigan stop — his third trip to a swing state since last month to talk about his economic policies — followed a poor showing for Republicans in November’s off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere amid persistent concerns about kitchen table issues.

The White House pledged after Election Day that Trump would hit the road more frequently to talk directly to the public about what he is doing to ease their financial fears. The president tried to drive that home on Tuesday, but only amid lengthy asides.

“I go off teleprompter about 80% of the time, but isn’t it nice to have a president who can go off teleprompter?” he said, before mocking Biden, suggesting his predecessor gave short speeches and doing an impression that included a dramatic clearing of his throat.

Trump promised to unveil a new “health care affordability framework” later this week that he promised would lower the cost of care. He also pledged to soon offer more plans to help with affordability nationwide — even as he blamed Democrats for hyping up the issue.

“One of our top priorities of this mission is promoting greater affordability. Now, that’s a word used by the Democrats," Trump said. “They’re the ones who caused the problem.”

Trump eased some auto tariffs

Despite cheering tariffs, Trump has actually backed off the import taxes when it comes to the automobile sector. The president originally announced 25% tariffs on automobiles and auto parts, only to later relax those, seeking to provide domestic automakers some relief from seeing their production costs rise.

Ford nonetheless announced in December that it was scrapping plans to make an electric F-150, despite pouring billions of dollars into broader electrification. That followed the Trump administration slashing targets to have half of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030, eliminated EV tax credits and proposed weakening the emissions and gas mileage rules.

While touring the plant, video posted by TMZ showed Trump making an obscene gesture at someone who was yelling at him from afar. White House spokesman Steven Cheung said "a lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”

Trump also suggested during the tour that a major North American trade pact he negotiated during his first term, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, was irrelevant and no longer necessary for the United States — though he provided few details.

Known as the USMCA, it is up for review this year.

Trump largely sidesteps Powell investigation

The president's attempt to shift national attention to his efforts to spur the economy comes as his Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a move that Powell says is a blatant endeavor to undermine the central bank's independence in setting interest rates.

Critics of the move include former Fed chairs, economic officials and even some Republican lawmakers. Trump lobbed his often-repeated criticisms of Powell during his trip, but offered little mention of the investigation.

Some good economic news for Trump arrived, though, before he left Washington, with new data from December showing inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell — a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing. Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the Labor Department said, the same as in November.

“We have quickly achieved the exact opposite of stagflation, almost no inflation and super-high growth,” he said in his speech.

Trump has made other economic policy speeches

The Michigan stop follows speeches Trump gave last month in Pennsylvania — where his gripes about immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation — and North Carolina, where he also insisted his tariffs have spurred the economy, despite residents noting the sting of higher prices.

Like in Michigan, Trump also used a casino as a backdrop to talk about the economy in Pennsylvania, giving his speech there at Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono.

Trump carried Michigan in 2016 and 2024, after it swung Democratic and backed Biden in 2020. He marked his first 100 days in office with a rally-style April speech outside Detroit, where he focused more on past campaign grudges than his administration's economic or policy plans.

Democrats seized on Trump's latest trip to the state to recall his visit in October 2024, when Trump, then also addressing the Detroit Economic Club, said that Democrats' retaining the White House would mean “our whole country will end up being like Detroit."

"You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said during a campaign stop back then.

About 100 people protested outside the venue where Trump spoke Tuesday, including Kassandra Rodriguez, a member of the Detroit Community Action Committee.

“He says a lot, but he means very little and I think we can see that,” Rodriguez said of the president. “He doesn’t know how to enact real policy in a real way.”

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press reporter Michelle L. Price contributed to this report from Washington.