RALEIGH — Former President Donald Trump delivered a speech to the Economic Club of New York this past Thursday.
Trump’s speech centered on policies to turn the economy around through energy independence through domestic energy production, ending the New Green Deal, cutting regulations, and lowering taxes.
Per an August AP-NORC poll, 45% said Trump was a better choice to handle the economy versus 38% for his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“First, I will end Kamala Harris’s anti-energy crusade and implement a policy of energy abundance energy Independence and even energy dominance,” Trump said. He said his plan will cut energy prices “in half or more than that within 12 months of taking office” and characterized it as “an economic revival of our country like no one has ever seen before.”
Trump said he would issue a national emergency declaration to “achieve a massive increase in domestic energy supply,” to combat the Environmental Protection Agency’s “so-called power plant rule” that he said has shuttered 50 power plants and targets coal plants for closure.
“We will blast through every bureaucratic hurdle to issue rapid approvals for new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new electric plants, and reactors of all types,” Trump said, adding, “Prices will fall immediately.”
He also said he plans to “terminate the Green New Deal,” which he called the “greatest scam in history,” while going on to reference Harris spending “$7.5 billion to build eight charging stations.”
On regulatory creep, Trump pledged to “cut two old regulations for every one new regulation,” which he said has added “$6,300 a year in regulatory costs onto the backs of the typical American family,” under the Biden-Harris administration.
Trump also called out Harris’ plan to ban “price-gouging” in grocery stores as a way to bring down high food prices.
“As president, I will go after the bad actors,” Harris said at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she unveiled a handful of economic proposals. “And I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price gauging [gouging] on food.”
“She wants four more years to enforce the radical left agenda that poses a fundamental threat to the prosperity of every American family and America itself,” Trump said, adding, “We’re talking about America itself; she wants to defund the police, have totally open borders, ban fracking in Pennsylvania and everywhere else.”
Additionally, Trump said Harris is a “Marxist who destroyed almost single-handedly San Francisco” when she was attorney general of California.
Increasing government efficiency was also addressed in the speech, with Elon Musk cited as driving that idea after federal report estimated $236 billion in “improper payments” were made during fiscal year 2023.
“I will create a government efficiency Commission task with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump said, noting that Musk has agreed to take on that task.
On taxes, Trump promised to make the Trump Tax Cuts permanent and criticized Harris’ proposals to raise corporate tax rates to 28%, up from the 21% Congress enacted in 2017 under Trump’s first term. When the corporate tax rate was slashed to 21%, it had stood at 35%.
The former president also attacked Harris’ for promising to let the Trump Tax Cuts expire, saying it would be the “largest small business tax hike in history.” He said the effect would be “raising small business tax rates to 43% and higher; in other words 20% higher than communist China.”
“These are not the policies designed to create a prosperous America these are policies to turn the United States into Venezuela on steroids,” Trump said about the Harris plan to put a 25% tax on unrealized capital gains.
Trump said he’d like to see the corporate tax rate for companies that produce in the U.S. be brought down to 15% and called for expanded R&D tax credits, 100% bonus depreciation, and expensing for new manufacturing investments.
On the use of tariffs, Trump said it was a “pro-American trade policy” to encourage production inside the U.S. instead of shipping jobs overseas. He did not give details on what tariff rates he has in mind.
Criticism that enacting tariffs would raise consumer costs was an issue with Trump’s first term; however, cost increases never materialized. President Joe Biden dismantled many Trump policies but kept Trump’s tariffs on China in place. Biden also banned exports of semiconductor and computer chips to China.
Trump also touched on affordable housing, citing rising interest rates under Biden-Harris as a barrier to homeownership. He said if elected, cutting regulations will help affordability and that he’d like to get interest rates down to “3% maybe even lower.”
Mortgage rates began to climb in summer 2021, going from around a national average of 3% to a high of 7.89% in October 2023, per historical tracking by Bankrate.com.
During her Raleigh stop, Harris touted giving first-time homebuyers $25,000 in taxpayer funds to used a down payment on a home and would give $40 billion to local governments for increasing the supply of housing. Earlier this month, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said bringing down interest rates was the key to home affordability, not a $25,000 check.
Trump also said he will ask Congress to bar migrants in the country illegally from receiving taxpayer funded benefits and programs.
“We’re going to give illegal aliens money to buy a house, but our soldiers, our veterans that are laying on the streets, they can’t have them,” said Trump, citing the example of California offering $150,000 in taxpayer subsidies to illegal migrants to buy a home.
He also specifically said Harris wants to give illegal migrants “food stamps, housing assistance, welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and destroy all of those programs.”
Prior to Trump’s speech, a call with media was held by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
On the call were Former United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Former White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Director of Communications & Marketing Nick Novak, and North Carolina Chamber Counsel Ray Sterling.
Each of the men laid out parts of what Trump would be speaking about to the Economic Club of New York.
With regard to North Carolina, Starling said “we are now firmly into what will be regarded by almost anyone in the AG sector as the toughest financial times that we’ve seen since the 1980s farm crisis, to put it bluntly.”
“The joy that the Harris administration has brought to the family farm has come in the form of a 37% pay cut,” said Starling. “These are USDA statistics. If you look at net farm income from 2022 to 2024, you would see a decline of 37.4%”
With North Carolina being a major agricultural producer, North State Journal asked Starling to expand on those remarks and how Harris’ proposal of a “price gouging ban” would factor into the broader picture of bringing down food prices.
“You’ve asked a country lawyer a question you’re going to get a country lawyer answer,” said Starling. “And that basically is the attack that she’s now frankly, you know, tried to assault the grocery or the retail or the Packer industry is really, in my view, a complete and total distress action.”
Starling reiterated earlier remarks that costs were due to “the inflationary type agitators” that Harris has been responsible for coupled with the Biden-Harris regulatory agenda.
“I think our folks would say the best thing we can do to lower costs is to let us be efficient. Let us source our energy the way we want it. Let us manage our relationship with our employees in a way that is symbiotic and beneficial to both,” Starling said. “Let us have certainty around things like FDA policy around EPA policy around water policy. Those are the kinds of things that will undergird and support and encourage investment that will actually bring prices down over time.”
In a follow-up conversation with Starling, he explained the statistics show us is that if those industries targeted by Harris are price-gouging to preserve profits, “at a minimum they’re not very good at it.”
“There is fierce competition in retail food sales, particularly in states like NC, home to so many strong retail chains. Margins are tight there,” Starling said. “I think they would tell you their costs of operation – labor, energy, inventory, transportation – are all up across the board. An antitrust investigation might sound good politically, but it won’t fix the problem.”
According to The Food Industry Association’s Industry Speaker 2024 report, same store sales and profit margins have fallen back to pre-pandemic levels. The report found profit margins in the grocery industry hit 1.6% in 2023; the lowest level since 2019 when it hit 1%.
Watch Trump’s full speech to the Economic Club of New York:
