Trump is set to travel to Pennsylvania stops focused on countering China
PITTSBURGH — Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail Monday and expected to travel to the swing state of Pennsylvania to speak about his plans to counter the U.S. reliance on China with a group led by a loyalist who served as his top intelligence official.
The former president and Republican presidential nominee is attending the 3 p.m. Eastern event in a rural area outside of Pittsburgh hosted by the Protecting America Initiative, which is led by Richard Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin.
Trump has embraced tariffs as he tries to appeal to working-class voters who oppose free-trade deals and the outsourcing of factories and jobs. The event on Monday focuses on proposals to increase America’s food supply and to protect U.S. farmers.
The National Agricultural Law Center estimates 24 states ban or limit foreigners without residency and foreign businesses or governments from owning private farmland. The issue emerged after a Chinese billionaire bought more than 130,000 acres near a U.S. Air Force base in Texas and another Chinese company sought to build a corn plant near an Air Force base in North Dakota.
Later on Monday, Trump is expected to rally voters at 7 p.m. Eastern in Indiana, Pennsylvania, a town east of Pittsburgh, where he is hoping conservative, white working-class voters help him pull ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent. Harris is also visiting Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
On Sunday, Trump shared that he doesn't “think” he'd run again for president in 2028 if he loses the 2024 election. The comment was noteworthy both because Trump seemed to rule out a fourth bid for the White House and because he rarely admits the possibility he could legitimately lose an election. Trump flirted with running for president for years before his successful 2016 bid and has often played up his deliberations to stay in the headlines.
His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, meanwhile is visiting North Carolina, where Trump rallied on Saturday, making direct appeals to women on the issue of reproductive rights. The former president argued women would be safe and prosperous and would “no longer be thinking about abortion.” They are both navigating the fallout from an explosive CNN report where North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican running for governor, made racial and sexual comments on a website where he also referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”
Robinson had been a frequent presence at Trump's North Carolina campaign stops. The Republican presidential nominee referred to him as “Martin Luther King on steroids” for his speaking style. But on his Saturday rally in Wilmington, Trump campaigned without him and did not mention him by name.
