CHIPPEWA FALLS – President Donald Trump on June 5 made his first visit to Wisconsin since winning the state in 2024, spending more than an hour at an event held on a farm about 10 miles north of Eau Claire.
There, he promoted his administration’s efforts to help farmers in a roaming speech that took detours to topics unrelated to Wisconsin’s agriculture industry.
Here are some takeaways from the speech:
Trump suggested he may be sending more aid to farmers
Trump promoted $28 billion in payments to farmers in the president’s first term to offset financial losses farmers experienced when retaliatory tariffs from China shut off export markets to agriculture producers. He said his administration is now “looking at something” to help farmers navigate higher costs due to his military action in Iran.
“We’re looking at something to take the place of what’s happened because it’s artificial. What happened to you is artificial with the energy and with the fertilizer. So we’re looking at something,” he said.
Brad Peterson, one of the Wisconsin farmers at the table with Trump, said agriculture producers would “rather have fair trade than the subsidies.”
Trump promoted Washington D.C. beautification projects
About 15 minutes into Friday’s event, Trump pulled out visual aides to promote the beautification projects he launched in Washington D.C. ahead of the United States’ 250th anniversary on July 4.
“We had 22 fountains. None of them worked for the last 50 years. None of them. They were graffiti strewn. I did it the inexpensive way,” Trump said.
Trump said he talked to his “pool guy” to get ideas about how to renovate the reflecting pool that sits between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
“I’ve built a lot of swimming pools, many, many swimming pools. Every time I do a development, I do swimming pools,” he said. “I said, why can’t we put the wonderful material, which is thick, pasty, beautiful like rubber, but industrial strength? Why can’t we use it? And let’s pick the color blue from the American flag, which is what we did. And that is the most beautiful thing that you’ve ever seen.”
“And look at that. I mean, look at that,” he said, holding up a piece of paper with a depiction of the length of the pool compared to skyscrapers.
“They got very upset when I sent my pool person. I said, ‘Who else am I going to send?'”
It wasn’t really a roundtable discussion
Friday’s event was billed as a roundtable discussion about the Trump administration’s agriculture policies, but it was really an hour-long speech by Trump that touched on agriculture but also myriad other topics including those that have nothing to do with agriculture.
At the end of Trump’s speech, he asked the people sitting to his right and left to say a few words but to “go pretty quickly, because I have to get back to fighting a war in Iran.”
“If we can, fellas, I got to get back to a place called Washington and protect you, OK? So, if you go very quickly … we don’t need your life story,” Trump said to his table companions that included farmers, members of Wisconsin’s federal delegation, the retired president of Leinenkugel’s Brewing Company and an Olympic speedskater.
The table companions largely offered praise for Trump’s policies and there was not much of a back-and-forth discussion.
Trump acknowledged the effect on farmers of his trade policies and Iran attacks
Trump’s farmer-focused event in Chippewa Falls came at a time when the conflict in Iran has raised diesel gas prices and fertilizer costs for farmers and tariffs have squeezed markets for Wisconsin’s agriculture industry. Trump didn’t pretend the effects of both actions were wholly positive for farmers.
“Over the last couple of months since we went in for the military operation, you’ve seen fertilizer go up and you’ve seen energy go up. It’s going to come down to where it was or lower. You’ll be very happy,” Trump said.
‘I could be home right now’
In making his case that no previous president has implemented as many farmer-friendly policies as he has, Trump said he was going out of his way to visit Wisconsin.
“As president, I fought for the American farmer like no one has ever fought before … Like, I’m up here today.I don’t need this. I got elected,” he said. “What the hell do I have to be here for? I got elected. I’m here because I like the farmer. … I could be home right now in the beautiful White House, enjoying watching somebody else on television talking.”
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Takeaways from Donald Trump’s roaming speech in Wisconsin
Reporting by Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
