President Trump highlighted a nationwide manufacturing boom during his tour of a Peterbilt truck plant, emphasizing high production rates and the impact of protective tariffs on American industry.
- Factory Production: President Trump expressed amazement after learning that the Peterbilt facility builds 200 heavy trucks a day, noting they sell as fast as they can be made.
- Economic Policy Impact: Trump credited his administration's trade policies and tariffs with protecting domestic manufacturers like Peterbilt from foreign competition and reviving American industrial jobs.
- Industry Milestones: Highlighting the legacy of Peterbilt, Trump stated that heavy truck shipments have reached all-time highs under his administration.
- National Manufacturing Growth: Trump framed the plant's massive expansion as part of a broader national trend bringing thousands of new manufacturing and heavy truck production jobs back to the United States.
President Donald Trump stopped by Peterbilt's Denton, Texas, facility Thursday afternoon, touting a resurgence of American manufacturing at the plant that's churned out more than 750,000 Peterbilt trucks over the past 46 years.
His stop at Pete's plant in north-central Texas marked President Trump's second tour of a heavy truck assembly line in three months, having in June visited Mack Trucks' Lehigh Valley Operations (LVO) in Macungie, Pa.
More than 2,500 people work from PACCAR's 700,000 square foot Denton plant, which sits on a 230 acre campus and produces about 200 trucks per day in a "state-of-the-art, super cool," facility, noted PACCAR CEO Preston Feight.
Trump, flanked by a pair of Model 579, centered much of his address on national trade deficits, job growth, and foreign policy, arguing that his protective tariff strategies have successfully reversed decades of decline for American industry.
"For decades you were heartlessly betrayed by politicians, lousy politicians who let foreign trade cheaters plunder your wages, loot your factories, close up your jobs, and they robbed our country blind," Trump told the crowd.
He emphasized that his administration's trade policies have slashed the U.S. trade deficit with China to its lowest level in 44 years and pushed American exports to historic highs.
Trump connected Peterbilt's production milestones to national figures, arguing that heavy truck shipments and manufacturing jobs have hit historic highs under his watch.
"After years of decline, this year the United States is adding 60,000 new manufacturing jobs and heavy truck manufacturing is almost up by about 31%," Trump said, "and heavy truck shipments have hit an all-time high—the highest in the history of our country under the Trump administration. So American trucking is back."
Job growth nationwide, Trump said, has led to "the lowest numbers on poverty in the history of our country."
Trump also applauded his Environmental Protection Agency for rolling back numerous emissions regulations, including de facto electric truck mandates. "We're getting rid of that crap," he noted, adding the complexity of the equipment required in the years ahead made it more expensive and difficult to operate.
Trump's EPA has indeed pivoted from some prior administrations' emissions rules, but it hasn't fully struck all of them down. Nitrogen oxides rules for 2027, for example, remain mostly intact but the EPA rescinded an extended warranty requirement and restore the agency's previous warranty and useful-life rules. It, too, proposed expanding the availability and flexibility of the credit system manufacturers use to meet regulatory averages; permitting manufacturers to pay non-conformance penalties as a short-term alternative if they cannot immediately meet the hardware standards; and granting manufacturers more time to validate the reliability of new emissions-control systems under real-world operating conditions.
The Trump EPA has dropped the requirement for diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) sensors as part of a truck's aftertreatment system in favor of monitoring actual emissions, and catalyst efficiency.
Trump Thursday also stumped for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office in April launched a statewide investigation into several trucking schools accused of certifying unqualified drivers and violating federal English-proficiency requirements. Paxton is currently running for a U.S. Senate seat.
