BYRON CENTER, Mich.—In separate speeches on Aug. 14, former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), shed more light on their plans for remedying the “affordability crisis” they say is plaguing America.
At a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, Trump announced a specific goal. He pledged that if he wins reelection, energy costs will be reduced by at least 50 percent within the first 12 to 18 months of his new term.
“My administration will issue rapid approvals for new energy infrastructure, unlock cooling, energy independence, and energy dominance,” said Trump, who served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.
He also promised: “On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign an executive order directing every Cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices rapidly down.”
“We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply-chain issues ... to the price of prescription drugs,” Trump said, adding that he expects the Cabinet to produce results within the first 100 days of his new administration.
As a result, “many Americans ... are becoming paupers in their own country,” said Vance, who grew up poor but graduated from Yale Law School before entering politics.
“If we don’t do better, our young generation, they’re not going to own anything ... they’re going to be renters in the country that their parents and grandparents built.”
Trump and Vance both emphasized the importance of drilling for oil and natural gas—in contrast to the policies that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee now running against Trump, have enacted since taking office in 2021.
Vance said those policies engendered higher fuel prices, touching off a ripple effect through the economy. Natural gas is used to make fertilizers for farmers, who use diesel fuel to run their tractors. Likewise, diesel is crucial for truckers who transport the farmers’ produce along with other goods to consumers—who end up absorbing the additional costs.
But, he said, “if we ‘drill, baby, drill' and take advantage of the incredible bounty of this nation, we’re going to lower food prices in a very big way for American consumers.”
Charlie Cordes, a company co-owner, told the audience: “We have all felt the sting from the inflation over the past couple years, from gas and grocery prices to the increased interest rates.
“JD Vance is here today because he plans to help President Trump improve the financial conditions for hardworking Americans like us.”
Besides drilling for gas and oil, other policies that would lower costs include bringing manufacturing back to the United States, Vance said.
“We should keep our money right here at home, build in America, buy in America, manufacture in America,” Vance said. “And that gives Americans the wages necessary, but it also means that you’re not printing a bunch of money, which makes our dollar more and more worthless.”
Those steps would help “make food affordable again in this country,” he said.
Vance questioned why, in his view, Harris hadn’t done enough to fix inflation and other economic problems while serving as Biden’s vice president.
Vance also questioned why Harris hadn’t given a news conference or interview in the almost four weeks since Biden dropped out of the race and named her his preferred successor.
Mike Rogers, a Republican candidate seeking to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate, told the audience that Vance’s role was to get the crowd “fired up,” but afterward, it’s up to supporters to mobilize.
People need to act on behalf of those who need relief, such as “that mom who is putting something back on the shelf in the grocery store because the price went up; she can’t afford it,” Rogers said.
“We have to stand up between now and November to make sure every vote is counted, to make sure everybody who doesn’t think it’s important to go to the polls gets up and shows up.”
