According to a report by South Korean SBS TV on October 4th, U.S. President Donald Trump visited Ohio on October 3rd. Ohio is one of the battleground states in the mid-term elections in November. Trump boasted that his tariff policy was successfully driving large-scale foreign investment into the United States.
Trump said at a campaign rally at a high school in Ohio, "We give them a short window of about one and a half years to build factories here." He also said, "If they don’t do this, we will impose tariffs of 150%, 200%, 250%, or 300% on them."
He said, “In the end, they all came here to establish factories.” He also stated, “The whole process was very simple, and the extent of our implementation of this policy was something that no one had ever seen before.”
He also claimed that the United States is earning trillions of dollars through these measures.
In defending his tariff policies, Trump claimed that countries around the world, including China, Japan, South Korea, and Canada, have long used tariffs to counter the United States, making the US "a laughingstock."
One day ago, Trump hinted that tariffs might be increased, saying that if South Korea does not invest in the Alaska liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, “we can definitely impose more tariffs on them.”
This is the first time since Trump launched his nationwide campaign tour on October 1st that he has visited a battleground state where Republican and Democratic candidates are evenly matched in opinion polls.
In contrast, the states he visited previously—Oklahoma and Alabama—are all Republican strongholds. In Senate elections polls, Republican candidates lead Democratic candidates.
Meanwhile, Ohio is seen as a key battleground for the Republicans to maintain their majority in the Senate. Currently, incumbent Republican Senator Jon Estes and Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown are neck and neck, with their vote ratings within the margin of error in polls.
Trump pointed out during the rally that he won Ohio in three presidential elections—in 2016, 2020, and 2024—and received the highest number of votes in the state’s history. He called on voters to "defeat the radical left Democrats again" in the upcoming mid-term elections.
