116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Trump promises to launch ‘revival of economic nationalism’ in Cedar Rapids
Visits to Iowa come as Republican caucuses are just 3 months away
Oct. 7, 2023 7:41 pm
CEDAR RAPIDS — Former President Donald Trump promised Saturday to launch “a revival of economic nationalism” focused on protectionist trade policies if he retakes the White House, with “the great state of Iowa at the center of the action.”
Trump campaigned before a crowd of more than 2,000 in downtown Cedar Rapids, touting his trade and farm policies, protecting American jobs and undoing Democratic President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and electric vehicle incentives.
The Republican presidential candidate spoke earlier in the day at a “commit to caucus” event in Waterloo.
Trump, as he often does in Iowa, highlighted the $28 billion in federal aid to farmers he approved as president to offset losses they experienced while his administration renegotiated international trade agreements and imposed new tariffs with China.
If elected, Trump said he would impose an across-the-board tariff on foreign-made goods and a Reciprocal Trade Act, placing the same tariffs for a foreign country that they place on the United States. He also pledged to revoke China's "most favored nation" trade status.
“We’re ready to take our America First economic program to even greater heights,” Trump said. “When I’m elected, we will have tax cuts, regulation cuts, energy price cuts and interest rate cuts like you’ve never seen before.”
The former president also railed against electric vehicles of all kinds, including boats and farm vehicles, saying he would prefer to die by electrocution rather than be eaten by a shark if he ever found himself on a rapidly sinking, electrically powered boat.
Trump claimed "ethanol is dead" under Biden’s policies, which subsidize the manufacturing and purchasing of electric vehicles and their components. The policies also impose strict fuel economy standards on automakers that can be met with zero-emission electric cars.
He also took swipes at Florida Gov. Ron. DeSantis, Trump’s closes rival in polls for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump criticized DeSantis as a “raging opponent” of ethanol.
DeSantis in Congress co-sponsored legislation that would have eliminated the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, which encourages ethanol production by requiring a certain amount be blended in the nation’s fuel supply.
Earlier this year in an op-ed published in the Des Moines Register, DeSantis pledged to “support giving drivers additional low-cost options at the pump, including higher ethanol blends such as E30 and higher octane options.”
Trump touted that his administration finalized a rule, later thrown out by a federal appeals court, allowing for year-round access to E15, gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol. Iowa is the nation's largest ethanol producer.
The former president also made light of his myriad legal troubles and went after New York Attorney General Letitia James, calling her a “crazed lunatic,” and “ultra-left” Judge Arthur Engoron.
Trump was in a New York courtroom this week as part of a civil fraud trial. Trump is also facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases in Washington, New York, Florida and Georgia and could potentially be looking at years in prison if convicted.
"Every time they indict me, I consider it a great badge of honor,“ he said, joking that he has been indicted more than famed gangster Al Capone.
Saturday’s visits come as Trump beefs up his campaign in Iowa in an effort to avoid a less-than-stellar victory in a critical early state. Iowa’s GOP caucus is about three months away, on Jan. 15, 2024.
A commanding victory in the leadoff caucus state would all but cement his status as the inevitable GOP nominee. A loss or narrow win in Iowa would provide an opening for DeSantis and others in the field.
However, the former president maintains a dominant lead in polling among Republican primary voters, both nationally and in Iowa.
Supporters
Julianna Balogh, 70, traveled 600 miles from Arkansas to see Trump on Saturday. Balogh arrived in Cedar Rapids late Friday and slept in her car.
Balogh, who emigrated from Hungary, said she’s traveled 60,000 miles this year following the former president as he campaigns. She said Saturday’s visit was the 40th Trump campaign event that she has attended.
Balogh is part of the "Front Row Joes," Trump supporters so steadfast they camp out for hours — even days — ahead of his appearances.
Wearing a star-spangled “Front Row Joes” baseball jersey with “Trump 45” written on the back, a shirt emblazoned with images of Trump and bright-red cowboy boots, Balogh said she likes Trump’s economic policies and believes Biden is “dragging” the United States “into World War III” with his support for Ukraine’s war against Russian invasion. She called Trump — who as president threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea — a “peacemaker” and the multiple indictments against him as “fake.”
Karen Higgins, 79, of Cedar Rapids, supported Trump in 2016 and 2020, and has committed to caucusing for him in 2024.
Higgins touted Trump’s economic and immigration policies — cutting taxes, boosting domestic energy production, building the border wall and forcing asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are pending.
“If they want to come here, come legally — not illegally,” she said.
Higgins, too, lauded Trump for appointing conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who overturned federal abortion protections.
“I don’t believe in abortion,” she said. “That’s killing, no matter how you look at it.”
Asked about the rest of the Republican presidential field, the 79-year-old said no candidate or issue is likely sway her support away from Trump.
Democrats
Iowa state Rep. Jeff Cooling, D-Cedar Rapids, and Ohio Democratic U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, argued Trump broke his promises to Iowans as president, signing into law tax cuts in 2017 that disproportionately helped the richest Americans and created new incentives for companies to move jobs overseas.
The pair spoke with reporters on a conference call ahead of Trump’s visits to Iowa. Brown serves on the National Advisory Board for Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign.
“He promised to put American workers first, but instead, his economic policies were just a page out of the same, failed Republican playbook: massive tax cuts for the rich and incentives for sending jobs overseas — paid for by weakening protections for organized labor and raising costs for everyday families,” Brown said.
Despite Trump’s claims, Cooling, a union electrician, argued the former president undermined unions and weakened the labor movement, appointing “union busting lawyers” to the National Labor Relations Board and conservative U.S. justices that have handed unions major setbacks.
"Trump has always looked out for the guy in the corner office and left the guy on the manufacturing floor to shoulder the cost,“ Cooling said.
He contrasted that with investments being made in Iowa by the Biden administration, including a $20 million grant funded by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to help pay for improvements and terminal remodel at The Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids.
"The jobs created by projects funded with these laws provide family-sustaining wages in skilled trades“ and support union jobs, Cooling said. ”Trump’s MAGA agenda would roll back the progress we have made under President Biden and put tens of thousands of new jobs and millions of dollars in investment he’s created at risk.“
Republicans contend Biden’s multitrillion-dollar agenda has made inflation worse by flooding the economy with government spending — straining family budgets at the grocery aisle — and that his clean energy policies are to blame for high gas prices.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
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