Donald Trump suggested children could do the job of auto plant workers on Tuesday while delivering a head-scratching tangent to the Economic Club of Chicago.
Trump, 78, appeared to oversimplify how international car companies get their vehicles ready-to-be-sold, saying they ship parts stateside that merely require American workers to “take them out of a box” and assemble.
“We could have our child doing it,” Trump said before a moderator cut him off.
The former president called out Mercedes Benz specifically as he gave a brief rant about his well-documented, oft-discussed love of tariffs.
Trump said he’d increase tariffs on auto manufacturers who don’t produce their vehicles entirely in the U.S. He suggested this tax hike on foreign-made parts would prompt automakers to build more plants, hire more Americans, and assemble their vehicles wholly in the states.
“We have deficits that are crazy,” Trump said. “We’re not going to have many more. We’re going to put tariffs on them and they’re going to do—and you know what they can do? Mercedes Benz will start building in the United States.”
Despite Trump’s repeated pronouncements, many American economists have warned that an increase in tariffs will likely lead to higher prices for consumers.
Kamala Harris’ campaign immediately honed in on Trump’s comments on Tuesday, posting a clip of the comment and claiming that he’d belittled auto manufacturing workers.
Trump’s comments are likely to not play well in Michigan—a swing state that was home to 41,500 people in the vehicle manufacturing industry as of 2001.
The comments come less than a last week after Trump bashed the city of Detroit while he was campaigning there, telling a rally crowd, “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”
Things had already been rocky between Trump and auto industry workers. The United Auto Workers’ union filed federal labor charges against Trump and Elon Musk in August over remarks they made about intimidating workers attempting to strike or organize during a livestream on X.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a press release. “When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean.”
