Former President Donald Trump, in his third acceptance speech since 2016, made sweeping promises Thursday night to protect American jobs from foreign competition, abolish the Biden administration’s “Green New Scam” clean energy policies and end illegal immigration.
Trump started the rambling 1½-hour speech on a unifying note and by recounting, for the first time in public, how he escaped assassination on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight," he said. The adoring Republican National Convention crowd in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum started chanting, “Yes, you are.”
He also declared, “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
But Trump eventually pivoted into long riffs on his priority issues, including trade, energy and immigration.
Trump didn’t directly talk about his pledge to impose across-the-board tariffs on imported products and duties of up to 60% on China. But he promised to bring more auto manufacturing to the United States, threatening to impose tariffs of 100% to 200% on foreign-made autos. “They will be unsellable in the United States,” he said.
Donald and Melania Trump look into the crowd with their family as balloons are dropped after Trump's presidential acceptance speech. He also touted his administration’s trade record.
“We have long been taken advantage of by other countries, and think of it, oftentimes these other countries are considered so-called allies,” Trump said. “We lose jobs, we lose revenue, and they gain everything, and wipe out our businesses, wipe out our people. I stopped it for four years, I stopped it.”
He said his “best” trade deal was an agreement with China, an apparent reference to the China Phase One deal signed in January 2020 that led to increased purchases of U.S. farm commodities.
"They were buying nothing. They buy $50 billion worth. They had to. But I don't even talk about it because of covid. I don't even mention it, frankly, because of what happened with the China virus."
He also mentioned the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump called the “worst trade deal ever made.”
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On energy policy, Trump claimed Biden had wasted trillions of dollars on the “Green New Scam,” which he claimed had contributed to inflation, an apparent reference to the Inflation Reduction Act enacted in 2022.
The IRA, which included funding for farm bill conservation programs, was estimated to cost well under $1 trillion. But Trump promised to somehow redirect clean energy funding to infrastructure projects. “We will not allow it to be spent on Green New Scam ideas.”
Trump also pledged to end what he described as the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandate, a reference to tailpipe emission standards that could accelerate a shift to EVs.
Trump touting a chart during his presidential nomination acceptance speech with U.S. illegal immigration rates. It is the same chart he turned to point to Saturday at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally at the moment of the attempted assassination. “I'm all for electric. They have their application. But if somebody wants to buy a gas-powered car or a hybrid, they're going to be able to do it. And we're going to make that change on Day One,” Trump said.
Corn growers and ethanol producers fear the emission standards will depress demand for ethanol-blended gasoline, although it's not clear how much and how fast the reduction in demand would be. At the same time, the biofuel industry is looking to preserve tax incentives created by the IRA to subsidize production of sustainable aviation fuel.
Trump, who didn’t mention either agriculture or climate change, also said he would increase production of oil and natural gas and drive down energy prices. “We will drill, baby, drill,” he said The crowd cheered and promptly started chanting “Drill, baby drill!”
Trump repeatedly returned to the issue of immigration, claiming that illegal immigrants had caused inflation while also taking jobs from American minorities. He promised to launch the “largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” asserting that “our cities are flooded with illegal aliens.”
Donald and Melania Trump.
“We want people to come into our country, but they have to come in legally,” he said.
Trump also made a point of praising his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. He didn't quite anoint him as his successor, but he made clear that Vance shares his ideology.
"He’s going to be a great vice president, he’s going to be great. He’ll be with this country and with this movement," Trump said.
Vance, a former Never Trumper who harshly criticized Trump in 2016, "is going to be with us a long time," Trump said, adding "JD, you’re going to be doing this for a long time; enjoy the ride.
The assassination attempt completely changed the tone of the convention – and the message. Speaker after speaker throughout the week attributed Trump’s survival of the attack to God’s protection.
Hulk Hogan, the retired professional wrestler, appeared on stage and ripped off his shirt, revealing a bright red Trump-Vance tee, declaring, “At the end of the day with our leader up there, my hero, that gladiator, we're going to bring America back together, one real American at a time.”
Rapper Kid Rock led the crowd in a call-and-response, “Fight, Fight, Fight.”
Kid Rock preforming at the RNC before Trump's entrance. Conservative journalist and commentator Tucker Carlson said Trump essentially took over leadership of the country at the moment he raised his fist in Butler, Pennsylvania.
"The more I watched it, the more it struck me that everything was different after that moment. Everything. This convention is different. The nation is different. The world is different. Donald Trump is different,” Carlson said.
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