Bipartisan U.S. senators want an investigation into farm equipment companies moving jobs to Mexico

A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators from the Midwest called on the Commerce Department on Thursday to investigate major farm equipment makers, saying they paid their shareholders well while moving jobs overseas.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, and Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio, asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will launch an investigation under a law that allows tariffs to be used for national security purposes.

John Deere, Caterpillar and Wisconsin-based Case New Holland had all laid off U.S. workers in recent years while also moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico. The moves hollowed out industrial cities in the Midwest but brought enormous profits to companies, Baldwin and Moreno wrote.

“These companies should not be allowed to eliminate American jobs, pay Mexican workers poverty wages, and then ship products back to the U.S. to make additional profits at the expense of our communities,” they wrote. “They argue that offshoring is necessary to remain competitive, but when it comes to paying executives or shareholders, they are never short of money.”

The companies have all made generous payments to shareholders in recent years, the senators said. John Deere paid $8.4 billion, CNH paid $1.7 billion and Caterpillar paid $18.2 billion through dividends and share buybacks, they wrote.

But the payouts to investors came at the expense of their workers, Baldwin and Moreno wrote.

CNH laid off 220 employees from its plant in Racine, Wisconsin in 2024 and moved production to Mexico. All approximately 200 CNH employees at a plant in Burlington, Iowa, are expected to lose their jobs after the company announced in January that it would close the plant. And John Deere laid off more than 3,600 union workers after moving production from Iowa to Mexico, the senators said.

Representatives for the companies did not immediately return calls seeking comment Thursday.

Section 232

Lawmakers called on Lutnick to launch an investigation that could lead to so-called Section 232 tariffs to stop companies from moving production to Mexico.

“These companies and their executives should not be rewarded for destroying American jobs, nor should they be allowed to import their products without facing a penalty,” they wrote.

The tariffs, named for the section of the 1962 law in which they were established, allow the administration to impose tariffs for national security purposes. Although they were introduced in 1962, no administration used them until President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum in his first term.

The government now has “a unique opportunity,” the senators said, to prevent bulky equipment manufacturers from moving more jobs out of the country.

But they added that any Section 232 investigation would be restricted by a free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that Trump approved in his first term. They called on the government to “address the problems” created by the agreement, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement.

The agreement “incentivized major heavy equipment manufacturers to locate their production in Mexico,” they wrote. “Any efforts the administration makes solely on Section 232 will be weakened by the deficiencies that currently exist in USMCA.”

Spokespeople for the Commerce Department and the White House did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

MAGA appeal

The senators’ letter appeals to key parts of Trump’s political coalition.

During his decade in politics, he focused his messages on protecting agriculture and revitalizing the domestic manufacturing industry.

In his two victorious presidential elections, the Republican won unusually huge swaths of union membership in swing states with classic manufacturing industries while gaining a huge advantage among rural voters.

Trump has aggressively – and controversially – used tariffs to boost domestic manufacturing.

He is scheduled to host nearly 1,000 farmers at the White House on Friday.