Trump visits a Ford pickup truck factory, aiming to promote his efforts to boost manufacturing

DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump toured an assembly line making Ford F-150 pickups on Tuesday, part of a Michigan trip meant to promote his efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing and counter fears about a weakening job market and still-rising prices hurting Americans’ pocketbooks.

Trump visited a factory floor at the River Rouge plant in Dearborn, where he viewed F-150s — the bestselling domestic vehicle in the U.S. — at various stages of production. He caught a first-hand look at how gas and hybrid models were built, as well as the all-gas Raptor model, designed for off-road use.

The president chatted with assembly line workers clad in reflective vests — some of whom applauded his arrival — and spoke with the automaker’s executive chairman, Bill Ford.

“All U.S. automakers are doing great,” Trump said, later adding that the “quality is unbelievable.”

Later, he headed to MotorCity Casino for a speech to members of the Detroit Economic Club, proclaiming “this is the easiest speech to make” because all he was doing is “spewing off what the hell we’ve done.”

“Right now I’m feeling pretty good,” Trump said.

But recent history suggests voters aren’t so impressed. Tuesday’s visit — his third trip to a swing state since last month to talk about his economic policies — follows a poor showing for Republicans in November’s off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere amid persistent concerns about kitchen table issues.

The White House pledged afterward that Trump would hit the road more frequently to talk directly to the public about what he is doing to ease their financial fears.

The president has previously suggested that jitters about affordability are a “hoax” unnecessarily stirred by Democrats. Still, though he’s imposed steep tariffs on U.S. trading partners around the world, Trump has reduced some of them when it comes to making cars — including extending import levies on foreign-made auto parts until 2030.

He made a point on the factory floor of mentioning that his administration has imposed large tariffs on vehicles imported from China and said he hopes to prevail at the Supreme Court, which is weighing the legality of his sweeping tariff policies.

Trump also suggested that a major North American trade agreement he negotiated during his first term, the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, was irrelevant and no longer necessary for the United States. The pact, known as the USMCA, is up for review this year.

Some good news for Trump arrived before he left Washington, when new data from December showed inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell — a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing. Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the Labor Department said, the same as in November.

“We have very low inflation,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before heading to Michigan, adding that “growth is going up. We have tremendous growth numbers.”

Meanwhile, Americans around the country remain concerned about inflation and the increasing cost of daily living.

Trump’s attempt to shift the nation’s attention to his efforts to spur the economy comes as his Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a move that Powell says is a blatant endeavor to undermine the central bank’s independence in setting interest rates. Critics of the move include former Fed chairs, economic officials and even some Republican lawmakers.

Asked on the White House lawn about the Powell investigation, the president lobbed his often-repeated criticisms of the Fed chair but didn’t comment on the case.

Ford announced in December that it was scrapping plans to make an electric F-150, despite pouring billions of dollars into broader electrification, after the Trump administration slashed targets to have half of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030, eliminated EV tax credits and proposed weakening the emissions and gas mileage rules.

The Michigan stop follows economy-focused speeches Trump gave last month in Pennsylvania — where his gripes about immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation — and North Carolina, where he insisted his tariffs have spurred the economy, despite residents noting the squeeze of higher prices.

Like in Michigan, Trump also used a casino as a backdrop to talk about the economy in Pennsylvania. His speech there was held at Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono.

Trump carried Michigan in 2016 and 2024, after it swung Democratic and backed Joe Biden in 2020. He marked his first 100 days in office with a rally-style April speech outside Detroit, where he focused more on past campaign grudges than his administration’s economic or policy plans.

During that visit nearly nine months ago, Trump also spoke at Selfridge Air National Guard Base and announced a new fighter jet mission, allaying fears that the base could close. It represented a win for Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — and the two even shared a hug.

This time, Democrats have panned the president’s trip, singling out national Republicans’ opposition to extending health care subsidies and recalling a moment in October 2024 when Trump, then also addressing the Detroit Economic Club, said that Democrats’ retaining the White House would mean “our whole country will end up being like Detroit.”

“You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said during a campaign stop back then.

Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said that “after spending months claiming that affordability was a ‘hoax’ and creating a health care crisis for Michiganders, Donald Trump is now coming to Detroit — a city he hates — to tout his billionaire-first agenda while working families suffer.”

“Michiganders are feeling the effects of Trump’s economy every day,” Hertel said in a statement.

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Weissert reported from Washington.

Will Weissert And Corey Williams, The Associated Press