Donald Trump enrages his own MAGA supporters by ordering U.S. troops to buy foreign cars instead of American vehicles: “Go out and buy a Toyota!”

America First really means America last…

“I was just told by the prime minister that Toyota is going to be putting auto plants all over the United States to the tune of over $10 billion. So that’s Toyota so go out and buy a Toyota,” Trump said to U.S. troops during a speech aboard the USS George Washington at the Yokosuka Naval Base.

Whenever Trump throws out a large number to brag, it’s safest to presume that he’s pulling the figure out of thin air. There’s no way to know if Toyota has actually pledged to spend $10 billion on manufacturing plants in the U.S.

And even if they really did pledge such an investment, there’s no reason to believe that they’ll follow through on it. Foreign leaders and companies know that Trump only cares about headlines. He can announce the investment, move on to his next fake announcement, and he won’t bother to follow up on the actual implementation. It’s all reality television to him.

What’s more, even if Toyota did make this pledge and does deliver on it, Trump urging Americans to buy Toyota is still a betrayal of his campaign promises. Profits for Toyota vehicles manufactured in the United States flow back to the corporation in Japan, strengthening a Japanese company at the expense of American companies’ market share.

“And that’s a lot to do with eh…” Trump continued. Because right now we have all the AI plants, we have so many things happening in the United States and it’s because of November 5th Election Day but it’s also because of tariffs."

“The tariffs have been so good,” Trump rambled on. “We’re taking in trillions and trillions of dollars. I heard them, before I came up I heard on— You’re all on television now. They’re talking to— All the networks, all the— Everybody’s covering it. Look at these characters back— Look at all of them!”

Donald Trump’s electoral victory in 2020 hinged partially on him winning Michigan, the beating heart of the U.S. automobile industry. These pro-Toyota remarks are a knife in the back of the autoworkers who put Trump back in power and they’ll remember it when the mid-term elections roll around.

Not surprisingly, the responses online have been overwhelmingly negative—

“Great. So Toyota will build workerless automated factories in the US that will bring few jobs and further undermine the longterm place of American workers,” wrote one user on the right-wing New York Post website.

“I pledge 20 billion-same economic impact,” mocked another.

Social media is afire with similar sentiments. Do you think that Trump’s remarks will hurt him in the mid-terms?

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