WASHINGTON—Donald Trump says he will impose a 200 percent tariff on John Deere’s imports into the United States if the company moves production to Mexico as planned.

Declining crop prices and high borrowing costs have slowed demand for new farm machinery this year. As a consequence, Deere has laid off more than 2,300 operations workers across its network of factories in Iowa and Illinois since March. White-collar workers in Iowa and Illinois have also been laid off. The company also announced that it planned to increase production capacity in Mexico.

“[Deere] announced a few days ago that they are going to move a lot of their manufacturing business to Mexico,” Trump said at an event held Sept. 23 in western Pennsylvania. “I am just notifying John Deere right now that if you do that, we are putting a 200 percent tariff on everything that you want to sell into the United States.”

The Republican presidential candidate has made tariffs the central element of his economic plan should he beat Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in the Nov. 5 election. 

Jennifer Hartmann, global director of strategic public relations at John Deere, had this to say about Trump’s comments:

“In both FY23 and FY24, less than 5 percent of [Deere’s] U.S. sales were manufactured in Mexico. More than 75 percent of sales in the U.S. are manufactured in the U.S.

“We are not ‘moving production’ to Mexico, as continues to be reported, instead, we’ve strategically leveraged our footprint in Mexico for cab production (that transition was announced in 2022 and is being completed this year) and [now for production of] midsize skid steers and [compact track loaders] by 2026.

“We have had a presence in [Mexico] since 1952. [As a global business,] it is not unusual for Deere to consider any number of factors when it comes to leveraging our global footprint, while building new products in U.S. factories, like the See & Spray in Des Moines and the 9RX tractor in Waterloo.