John Deere Publicly Refutes Trump’s Claim His Tariff Threats Stopped Their Mexico Plans

The company behind John Deere farm equipment publicly refuted a claim from former President Donald Trump on Tuesday after the GOP nominee told an audience that Deere & Co. had given up on moving a plant to Mexico following his threats of tariffs.

Trump tussled with Bloomberg News’s editor in chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club of Chicago and at one point claimed John Deere “announced about a year ago they’re going to build big plants outside of the United States. Right. They’re going to build them in Mexico.”

Micklethwait interjected that Trump has threatened the company with tariffs.

“That’s right. I said if John Deere builds those plants they are not selling anything into the United States, they just announced yesterday, they’re probably not going to build the plants. Okay. I kept the jobs here and I’ll keep the– John Deere will stay here,” Trump boasted.

The comment received high praise across conservative media. Fox’s Laura Ingraham played the clip on her show Tuesday night and gushed, “He went through Mr. Bloomberg with the British accent like a hot knife through butter. It was a beautiful thing to watch.”

However, shortly after Trump’s sit down with Micklethwait, Deere publicly declared it made no such announcement. The Wall Street Journal reported, “Deere said after the Trump interview that it didn’t make any announcement about canceling plans to build farm tractor cabs and some construction machinery at plants in Mexico. The company in June said it would move production of some models of small and medium-size construction loaders from Dubuque, Iowa, to a new plant in Mexico. The move is expected to be completed in 2026.” The WSJ added some more information as to why it was moving some production overseas:

Deere in 2022 decided to move production of cabs for its large farm tractors from Waterloo, Iowa, to an existing plant in Mexico. The cab move is scheduled to be completed this year.

Trump said last month that if he is elected president again, Deere would face tariffs of 200% on made-in-Mexico equipment sold in the U.S. that was previously made here.

Deere executives said the moves are intended to free up manufacturing space and employees at U.S. plants for other models. The company said it would start assembling its new 9RX tractor line in Waterloo in space formerly occupied by the cab line.

Trump attacked the Wall Street Journal during the interview when Micklethwait noted that the paper had warned Trump’s spending proposals would run up the debt and increase inflation. Trump hit back, fuming, “They’ve been wrong about everything.”

Read the full Wall Street Journal report here .