Pritzker takes aim at Trump tariffs with business tours, calls to foreign officials

[February 08, 2025]  By Andrew Adams, Jade Aubrey

When President Donald Trump announced plans to issue tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China last week, the backlash from Illinois leaders was swift.

The duties on Mexico and Canada were “paused” by Monday afternoon amid negotiations between the nation’s leaders, but that didn’t stop Gov. JB Pritzker from frequently taking aim at the tariffs – and Trump – this week.

On Friday, at an announcement of a new tax credit for Freedman Seating, a Chicago-based vehicle seat manufacturer, Pritzker criticized the president’s attempts to impose the tariffs.

“Affordability and jobs are potentially the victims of that trade war,” Pritzker said. “Tariffs are a tax paid for by consumers. In the end, it’s a tax on working families and on small businesses.”

Freedman Seating agreed to invest $4 million for capital upgrades at its Chicago facility and is set to get a state tax credit as part of a deal to create 50 new jobs and keep 676 existing ones. The deal is part of Illinois’ Economic Development for a Growing Economy program.

That company was the latest Pritzker visited in what became a week of campaigning against the tariffs. On Thursday, he visited Darvin Furniture in Orland Park and Funkytown Brewery in Chicago to discuss the proposed duties. The furniture store already put a hold on a deal with a Canadian supplier, according to Pritzker’s office.

Trump’s reasons for the tariffs aren’t relevant to Canada, Pritzker argued Friday.

“With regard to Canada, 1% of all the fentanyl that ends up in the United States is coming from the northern border, from Canada,” he said. “One percent, that’s the emergency he’s going after. Immigration is the second of the two emergencies that he has declared in order to put these tariffs on. Immigration – that is not a problem from Canada.”

On Wednesday, Pritzker called Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman and Consul General of Mexico in Chicago Reyna Torres Mendivil to discuss the tariffs. On Friday, he said he urged them to make sure their respective countries “don’t retaliate” against products that are important to companies in Illinois.

Pritzker also went after Trump’s disbandment of diversity, equity, and inclusion frameworks, calling the move an attack on civil rights during Friday’s news conference. And he criticized the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze, saying it was actually a freeze on programs that keep Illinois safe, specifically local law enforcement agencies.

“It’s a massive effort to distract from what they are doing across the country, to take away things that working-class, middle-class people, families, and the most vulnerable really need,” he said.

Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at a news conference with lawmakers and representatives of Pace Suburban Bus in Markham on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

EV charger clash

Trump’s actions may also pump the brakes on one of Pritzker’s signature policy goals: reducing the state’s carbon footprint.

Pritzker set a goal to have 1 million electric vehicles on Illinois roads by 2030. Pritzker’s administration has also awarded more than $1.1 billion in tax breaks meant to bolster the EV industry supply chain since 2022.

But that effort could face new headwinds after the Trump administration told states Thursday it was suspending funding for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, a Biden-era program that was originally designed to put $5 billion toward building new EV chargers.

The Illinois Department of Transportation, which administers the program in Illinois, announced in September that it approved $25 million for the first round of funding. Illinois was set to receive as much as $148 million in total through 2027 as part of the program.

Late last year, the department extended the application window for the second round and was accepting applications as recently as this week, according to its website.

Pritzker also on Thursday took on a new role as co-chair of “America is All In,” an advocacy group aimed at a “whole-of-society” response to climate change.

It originated during the first Trump administration after state elected officials and business leaders – including Pritzker – wanted to signal that they would still take aggressive action on climate change after Trump said he would pull the U.S. out of a 2016 U.N. agreement committing the nation to reducing its carbon emissions.

“We cannot be afraid to tell the truth: the climate crisis is real and we must tackle it with action that protects us from natural disasters and builds a strong clean energy economy with good-paying jobs,” Pritzker said in a statement “It’s clear that states like Illinois and cities, businesses, and institutions will be where climate action presses forward.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.