President Donald Trump speaks to, from left Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of Ford, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, and Corey Williams, Ford River Rouge Plant Manager, during a tour of the Ford River Rogue complex, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

DETROIT — President Donald Trump offered a full-throated defense of his sweeping tariffs on Tuesday, traveling to swing-state Michigan to push the case that he’s boosted domestic manufacturing in hopes of countering fears about a weakening job market and still-rising prices that have squeezed American pocketbooks.

Trump visited the factory floor of a Ford plant in Dearborn, where he viewed F-150s — the bestselling domestic vehicle in the U.S. — at various stages of production. That included seeing how gas and hybrid models were built, as well as the all-gas Raptor model, designed for off-road use.

The president chatted with assembly line workers as well as the automaker’s executive chairman, Bill Ford, a descendent of Henry Ford. “All U.S. automakers are doing great,” Trump said.

He later gave a speech to the Detroit Economic Club that was meant to be focused on his economic policies but veered heavily to other topics as well. Those included falsely claiming to have won Michigan three times (he lost the state in 2020 to Joe Biden) and recalling the snakes that felled workers during U.S. efforts to build the Panama Canal more than a century ago.

“The results are in, and the Trump economic boom has officially begun,” the president said at the MotorCity Casino. He argued that “one of the biggest reasons for this unbelievable success has been our historic use of tariffs.”

The president said that tariffs were “overwhelmingly” paid by “foreign nations and middlemen” — even as economists say steep import taxes are simply passed from overseas manufacturers to U.S. consumers, helping exacerbate fears about the rising cost of living.

“It’s tariffs that are making money for Michigan and the entire country,” the president said, adding “every prediction the critics made about our tariff policy has failed to materialize.”

Tuesday’s visit — his third trip to a swing state since last month to talk about his economic policies — followed a poor showing for Republicans in November’s off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere amid persistent concerns about kitchen table issues.

The White House pledged after Election Day that Trump would hit the road more frequently to talk directly to the public about what he is doing to ease their financial fears.

Trump promised to unveil a new “health care affordability framework” later this week that he promised would lower the cost of care. He also pledged to soon offer more plans to help with affordability nationwide — even as he blamed Democrats for hyping the issue.