Did U.S. President Donald Trump claim that automobile executive Lee Iacocca had endorsed his tariff plans in April 2025, even though Iacocca died in 2019? No, that's not true: In remarks on April 2, 2025, Trump cited praise of his plan from an unnamed person who had supposedly worked with Iacocca. The former president of Ford and chairman of Chrysler retired in 1992.
The claim appeared in a post on X on April 2, 2025 (archived here). The post read:
BREAKING: Trump says Lee Iacocca endorsed his tariff plan.
Lee Iacocca died in 2019.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot)
In reality, Trump claimed a man who had worked with Iacocca -- but not Iacocca himself -- had praised his tariff plans. The following is an excerpted transcript of remarks Trump made from the White House Rose Garden on April 2, 2025:
You know I watched a gentleman today on television who used to work with Lee Iacocca, very respected automobile person, and he said..."I can't believe it, somebody is finally" -- he's an older guy, real pro, really top guy with Lee Iacocca, he said "I never thought I'd see the day when this would happen, where somebody had the courage to go and do what has to be done. This is transforming our nation, our entire nation is going to be transformed, not only with the cars, but on every single other item that's built. We're going to become an industrial powerhouse." And he said that so beautifully today.
You can watch the relevant section of his remarks below:
The identity of the man Trump claimed to have seen on television is not immediately clear. We will update this article in the event that we are able to find the television interview to which Trump was referring.
