Trump sought to rescue American manufacturing through trade wars he waged with allies and rivals alike. He embarked on a trade dispute with China in early 2018, and both countries slapped tariffs worth hundreds of billions of dollars on each other.
Manufacturing suffered as a result, since its an industry susceptible to shifts in global trade, particularly tariffs or the rising cost of imported components. The industry just barely slid out of a recession into a state of expansion in January.
Trump, however, put a positive spin at the address, saying he's restoring the country's "manufacturing might."
"After losing 60,000 factories under the previous two administrations, America has now gained 12,000 new factories under my administration," he said.
But according to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, the US added only 11,000 factories since 2017 - and 8,000 of them employ five or fewer employees.
In addition, employment growth in manufacturing slowed to fewer than 50,000 jobs in 2019, the worst rate of his presidency and far from "a blue collar boom."
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