Trump said: "I'm just notifying John Deere, $DE, right now. If you build in Mexico, we're putting a 200% tariff on everything that you wanna sell into the United States so that if I win, John Deere is gonna be paying 200%"
Apple, General Motors, John Deere, and Facebook share two key traits: they are iconic American companies, and they have faced the ire of former President Donald Trump.
Trump, more than any modern U.S. president, has directly targeted individual businesses, threatening them with boycotts, revoked federal contracts, and massive tariffs. Most recently, Deere, the nearly 200-year-old farm equipment manufacturer, became the latest company to be singled out by Trump.
On Monday, Trump threatened to impose hefty tariffs on Deere if the company moved ahead with plans to shift some production from the Midwest to Mexico. Experts warn that such an action could harm American farmers, benefit Chinese manufacturers, and violate Trump’s own trade policies. This attack on Deere is part of a larger pattern of Trump using his platform to pressure companies when it suits his agenda.
It serves as a reminder of the unpredictable environment CEOs might face if Trump returns to the White House. Bill George, former CEO of medical device company Medtronic, told CNN, "Trump is proving himself to be an anti-capitalist. It’s wrong to single out companies like this. These are not bad companies—they haven’t produced unsafe products or broken any laws."
'Enemy of the People'
Even before taking office, Trump targeted companies on the campaign trail. In February 2016, during his presidential run, Trump called for a boycott of Apple after the company refused to help the FBI unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. (Although Apple didn’t comply, the FBI later accessed the phone on its own.)
Trump has frequently criticized Amazon, including a 2018 episode where he accused the company of exploiting the U.S. Postal Service, spooking investors. He also went after Boeing over the cost of Air Force One, General Motors over its production plans, and Nordstrom for dropping his daughter Ivanka’s brand. Merck was also a target after then-CEO Ken Frazier resigned from a presidential council over Trump’s response to the White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
More recently, Trump called Facebook an "enemy of the people" during a CNBC interview in March, causing Meta Platforms to lose billions in market value. And Trump has consistently attacked news outlets and their parent companies.
Late Friday, Trump threatened to prosecute Google for “only revealing bad stories about Donald J. Trump.”