President Donald Trump boasted that the U.S. is experiencing a “manufacturing boom” following the release of the first full jobs report of his second term.
The Labor Department on Friday reported that employers added 151,000 jobs in February, below the estimate of 160,000 jobs made by LSEG economists. However, manufacturing added 10,000 jobs in February, above LSEG economists’ estimate of a 5,000 gain.
“During the last year the Biden administration saw a loss of more than 110,000 manufacturing jobs or 9,000 manufacturing jobs every single month. During the first full month in office, we’ve not only stopped that manufacturing collapse, but we’ve begun to rapidly reverse it and get major gains,” Trump said. “We created 10,000 manufacturing jobs in February alone. That hasn’t happened in a long time.”
“The ISM Manufacturing Survey and the S&P Manufacturing Survey have also confirmed that our administration is presidng over a brand-new domestic manufacturing boom after a major collapse under Biden.”
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Trump said he thinks the labor market is “going to be fantastic,” but it’s going to have high-paying manufacturing jobs as opposed to government jobs.
“We had too many people in government. You can’t just do that. We had many, many, too many. This is for 40 years. You know, this isn’t just now. This built up and got worse and worse, and they just hire more and more people.”
Federal government employment declined by 10,000 jobs in February as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, began to make cuts.
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“Since the beginning of NAFTA, there’s been 90,000 plants and factories closed in this country. Think of that, 90,000 plants and factories have been closed in this country. Many of them have been car manufacturing plants. And that’s a terrible statistic. And we’ll be turning it around,” Trump continued.
“You’re going to see it already. We already have numerous that are being built or starting to be built, and numerous that were being built in other countries and they stopped and they’re coming here now because of the tariffs. And that’s a big deal. That’s what you want to hear.”
Trump also said Canada charges a 250% tariff on U.S. dairy and lumber products, and that unless Canada lowers that tariff, the U.S. will impose a reciprocal 250% tariff on like goods – possibly as soon as today.
“They’ll be met with the exact same tariff unless they drop it. And that’s what reciprocal means. And we may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday. But that’s what we’re going to do,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’re going to charge the same thing. It’s not fair. Never has been fair. And they’ve treated our farmers badly.”
FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
