“I'm just notifying John Deere right now, if you do that, we're putting a 200 percent tariff on everything you want to sell into the United States. If they want to build in the United States, there's no tariff.”
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Adversarial re-check confirms the prior rating. (1) The triggering condition unambiguously occurred and was independently verified: Construction Equipment (June 13, 2024) documents Deere acquiring land in Ramos, Mexico, with 'mid-frame skid steer loader and compact track loader production ... relocated from John Deere Dubuque Works to the Mexico facility,' ramping down in Dubuque in early 2026 and completing by end of 2026 (~200 production + 25 salaried jobs affected). Deere separately confirmed a $55M Nuevo Leon construction-equipment plant for 2026 in November 2024, reported at the time as proceeding despite Trump's threat. (2) No 200% tariff -- and no company-specific tariff of any kind -- was ever imposed on John Deere. I found no reporting of any Deere-targeted tariff action in 2025-2026. Deere's tariff burden is entirely from economy-wide Section 232 steel/aluminum/derivative measures (~$300M through mid-2025, ~$600M full-year 2025, projected roughly $1.2B gross / ~$900M net in 2026 after a $272M refund) -- broad input-cost tariffs, not the promised punitive levy on Mexico-built Deere machines. (3) Opportunity was ample: Trump held and aggressively used unilateral IEEPA and Section 232 tariff authority for 18 months in office. (4) Directionally he went the other way on this exact product class -- the June 1, 2026 White House proclamation cut Section 232 tariffs on agricultural and construction equipment from 25% to 15% through 2027 (verified PRIMARY on whitehouse.gov) -- but that was broad farmer-relief policy amid an ag downturn, not a measure aimed at the Deere commitment, and it ran alongside input tariffs that cost Deere hundreds of millions. That mixed record is why IGNORED (-0.25) rather than MISALIGNED (-0.75) is the fair call. (5) His only notable public engagement with Deere while in office was a January 2026 speech claiming credit for a $70M North Carolina Deere plant that KCRG's fact-check showed had been announced in May 2024, before he took office -- rhetoric, not action on the pledge. Nothing in the record supports ATTEMPTED, PARTIAL, or NO_OPPORTUNITY: economy-wide tariffs are not partial fulfillment of a company-specific 200% threat, and the trigger event plus full tariff authority rule out lack of opportunity. Same-standard test: a politician of either party who threatened a named company with a 200% tariff, saw the triggering conduct occur, held unilateral authority for 18 months, and never acted on it would receive IGNORED. Note on prior sourcing: the prior rating's third source (The Gazette, Sept 26, 2024) is real but its quote actually shows Deere DENYING a production move; it has been replaced here with Construction Equipment's direct documentation of the Dubuque-to-Ramos transfer, which is the correct evidence for the trigger.
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