29-04-2025
The US Factory Where Trump Previewed His Tariffs in 2017 Is Now in China
When Donald Trump set out to mark the 100th day of his first term in 2017, he headed for a wheelbarrow factory in a swing state with a rich history and patriotic bona fides. The Ames True Temper plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had almost 150 years of production behind it, and the company's toolmaking history went back even further, to 1774. Ames Cos. supplied shovels to George Washington's Revolutionary Army and to the carvers of Mount Rushmore. Its wheelbarrows helped build the Hoover Dam. For Trump it was a perfect backdrop to launch his plans to bring factory jobs back to America.
'We believe in 'Made in the USA,' and it's coming back stronger and better and faster than even I thought,' Trump told reporters that day as he sat at a desk set up on the factory floor. With cabinet members and Ames staff lined up behind him, he signed two executive orders that set in motion the process that less than a year later led to his first tariffs.
