WASHINGTON — President Trump took a victory lap Friday after a surprisingly strong monthly jobs report showed the economy added 172,000 jobs in May as major stock indices smashed records — while promising midterm voters that gasoline costs would drop soon.
Trump touted the positive economic numbers during a farmer roundtable in Chippewa Falls, Wis., and said that good news would come within 90 days for fuel and fertilizer costs following the end of the Iran war, which he said would happen “one way or the other.”
“Hopefully you’re going to be voting Republican,” Trump said as he campaigned for GOP candidates who joined him in the large tin farm building — addressing head-on economic concerns that are his party’s top perceived vulnerability.
“I hope you people are really spiritized, because we’re at a point we’re going to come out of Iran very quickly, and it’s going to be very strong one way or the other, whether it’s a piece of paper or the very tough way,” said Trump, seated in front of a large green John Deere tractor.
“We’re going to come out, and your fertilizer prices are going to go way down, just like they were four months ago.”
Trump added: “I told [farmer] Ken [Custer], ’90 days, watch what happens, you could be better — better than you were four months ago!’”
“Over the last couple of months since we went in for the military operation, you’ve seen fertilizer go up and you’ve seen the energy go up. It’s going to come down to where it was, or lower,” Trump vowed.
“You’ll be very happy.”
Farmers participating in the roundtable thanked Trump for policies that they said made it easier to sell whole milk, brew beer and transfer farm ownership to their children.
‘This is during a military conflict’
Trump told his audience that the economy was strong and only getting stronger — pointing to the unexpected May jobs data that nearly doubled economist expectations.
“I’m delighted to report that for the third month in a row the jobs numbers — I guess you saw them this morning — they just got released and they smashed all expectations,” Trump said at the farm roundtable.
“And this is during a military conflict. I call it that because it’s really not that much of a war, but it’s a military conflict, it’s a practice, but this is 172,000 jobs that were created in May,” he said.
“These are the strongest job numbers of the entire administration so far, and that’s during this conflict on top of it, so it’s great.”
“In a single month we added 7,000 new manufacturing jobs and 17,000 new construction jobs, and we’re building more plans than at any time in the history of our country. We have $18 trillion coming into the United States,” he added.
“Wages for workers continue to rise, and for manufacturing workers, wages are up more than 8% since I took office, which is close to a record. Think of that: blue collar is doing better than it’s ever done before.”
Trump also said that “African American unemployment is now doing better than it’s ever done, and I don’t know where that stat came from, but I’ll take it.”
Trump also touted record-breaking stock surges this year, driven by artificial intelligence.
Stocks fell Friday following the jobs report release — due to the positive news contributing to a mounting consensus there won’t be a Federal Reserve rate cut this year — but the Dow Jones Industrial Average remains up 20% over the past year, with the Nasdaq up 33% and the S&P 500 up 24%.
“Your 401ks, as you know, just hit a record high, so that’s everybody!” he told the audience.
“We’re leading China by a lot of the AI race, a very important race, and we’re leading everybody now when it comes to cars.”
‘We are going to break every record’
Although much of Trump’s remarks were a general optimistic rundown on the economy, he floated potential financial aid for his target audience of farmers to compensate for war-driven spikes in fuel and fertilizers, while saying he’s sure they wouldn’t want it.
“What happened to you is artificial with the energy and with the fertilizer. So we’re looking at something, but in the first term I got the farmers $28 billion,” he said.
Trump said that he thought fuel costs “would be much higher” due to the war, but that “we’re going to get them down to those numbers again very quickly.”
Gasoline costs an average of $4.22 a gallon, according to AAA data — up from $3.15 at the same time last year.
A preliminary memorandum of understanding being negotiated with Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz — through which about a fifth of global oil exports flow — and leave to further talks Iran’s nuclear program. The MOU, however, has taken longer to negotiate than anticipated due to final sticking points.
Trump also pledged at the event to continue to allow gasoline with 15% ethanol blended in to be sold year-round and championed the raft of tax cuts passed last year in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that the administration would ensure record-breaking exports — after Trump’s global trade war last year sought to knock down other nations’ barriers to US products.
“We are going to break every record for dairy, for tree nuts, for corn, for ethanol, as we move the American farmers’ product, the best in the world, back out to the rest of the world,” Rollins said.
Although Trump rattled off positive economic indicators, polling shows Americans feeling less optimistic. He currently faces 61.7% disapproval in his handling of the economy, according to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, showing that his historical strength in the area has been turned into a liability, as inflation again rises due to the war.
Trump warned Democrats would do much worse and that “I don’t think you have much of a choice.”
“These are some very sick puppies that I’m looking at that are running for office on the other side,” he said. “I call them the Dumocrats.”
