Trump Rock Hill Rally Speech: Canada Is 'Treating Us Extremely Nicely Lately,' He Says, Crediting His Tariffs
The verified-remarks file from Rock Hill: the president told the Graham rally that his tariff war with Canada has improved relations, and defended his steel and aluminum tariffs as a factory-building tool - claims he made to a crowd in a Senate race Fox moved to a toss-up that morning.
ROCK HILL, S.C. - President Donald Trump used his Thursday rally for Sen. Darline Graham to make an unexpected claim about the country his administration has spent the year in a tariff war with. Canada, he told the crowd at the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center, has been 'treating us extremely nicely recently' - and he credited the tariffs he imposed on Canada with improving relations. 'They're treating us extremely nicely lately,' Trump said, in remarks reported by Reuters from the rally.
The Canada line sat inside a broader economic defense. Trump discussed his steel and aluminum tariffs and claimed they are encouraging companies to invest and manufacture in the United States, and he touted stock market performance, retirement account gains, employment, income levels and manufacturing exports, along with tax cuts, prescription drug prices, support for farmers, military spending and energy costs. Those figures are the president's claims, presented as he made them; the speech coverage itself notes they were not independently verified there, and this station carries them as claims, not findings.
Graham, whose race against Charleston Democrat Annie Andrews Fox News moved from a Republican lean to a toss-up on Thursday morning after a New York Times/Siena poll tied them at 48 percent each, made her own case from the same stage, attacking Andrews over guns, abortion and border security and pointing to her early Senate voting record and her support for the president. The rally was Trump's third South Carolina stop of the closing stretch, all of them in territory Graham lost in the August primary and runoff - the unity problem this station detailed at midday. South Carolina's early voting runs through October 31; Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
