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Peterbilt worker to Trump: because of your tariffs, we hired 1,000, and my son was one of them

Peterbilt Worker Tells Trump His Tariffs Helped the Texas Plant Hire 1,000, Including Her Son

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanOctober 2, 2026 · 4 min read
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A Peterbilt employee stood beside President Trump at the company’s truck plant in Denton, Texas, on Thursday, October 1, 2026, and told him his tariffs had put her son to work. “Mr. President, because of your tariffs, we have been able to hire increased production and hire 1,000 employees. And my son was included on that,” she said.

The worker, whom Trump thanked as Sarah and whom Fox 7 Austin identified as Peterbilt events manager Sarah Renshaw, spoke without notes. Trump noticed. “Wow. And she did that with no notes. I like that,” he said.

Three generations on one factory floor

Her remarks were short, and they said more about the truck tariffs than most of the economic commentary written about them. “Peterbilt is not just a company. It is the foundation of my family and its success,” she began. “My husband, mom, dad, son, we have a collective 65 years of employment. With way more to come.”

Then came the line that made the clip travel. After telling the president the plant had hired 1,000 people and that her son was one of them, she added: “I can officially say that we are a third generation Peterbilt family. I am so thankful for what not only Peterbilt has done for us, but what also you, Mr. President, has done for our family.”

That is the case for the policy in human terms: a mother, her husband, her parents and now her son, all tied to the same American truck company.

The numbers behind the testimony

The policy she was thanking him for is specific. On October 17, 2025, Trump signed a Section 232 proclamation imposing a 25 percent tariff on imported medium- and heavy-duty trucks, Class 3 through Class 8, from large pickups to eighteen-wheeler tractors, along with a 25 percent tariff on truck parts and a 10 percent tariff on buses. The duties took effect November 1, 2025. USMCA-qualifying trucks are taxed only on their non-U.S. content, and manufacturers can earn an offset worth 3.75 percent of the value of trucks assembled in the United States through 2030.

The White House justified the move on national security grounds, noting in its fact sheet that trucks move more than 70 percent of the nation’s freight and that imports account for approximately 43 percent of medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold in America.

Peterbilt, a division of Bellevue, Washington-based PACCAR, says it has added more than 1,000 jobs at the Denton plant. A White House official told Fox Business before the visit that PACCAR had increased U.S. truck production and employment since the tariffs took effect, crediting the policy with more than 1,000 added jobs in Denton and more than 2,000 across PACCAR’s U.S. operations. FreightWaves noted that it had not independently confirmed those figures. The Denton plant, according to FreightWaves, started with 81 employees building about two and a half trucks a week and had grown to roughly 2,000 workers by 2016. PACCAR’s 2025 annual report gave Peterbilt a 14.8 percent share of the U.S. and Canadian Class 8 truck market.

What Trump said

Trump used the visit to make the broader argument. “American trucking is back,” he said, according to FreightWaves. “Workers like you and companies like this have always been loyal to our country.” He told the crowd the company had invited him “because you’re doing massive expansions,” and said heavy truck shipments had hit an all-time high. Of the trucks, he said, “They’re beautiful,” and joked he would “buy one myself and drive it.”

He also said heavy-truck manufacturing was up “about, what, 31% or something,” hedging on the figure himself, and that the country had added 60,000 manufacturing jobs this year. The visit doubled as a campaign stop: Trump praised Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee, and attacked his Democratic opponent, state Rep. James Talarico.

The other side of the ledger

Tariff skeptics have a number of their own. FreightWaves, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data reported by Fox Business, noted that while the U.S. economy added 807,000 jobs after Trump returned to office in January 2025, overall manufacturing employment fell by 35,000 over the same period. The administration argues that the wave of announced factory investment has not yet shown up fully in the employment data.

That debate will continue, and it should. But national statistics and a single plant measure different things. The point of a targeted tariff on heavy trucks is to make it more attractive to build those trucks here, and in Denton, the company building them says it has hired a thousand more people to do it.

For years Americans were told that protecting domestic industry was a relic, that the jobs were never coming back, and that the factory towns should learn to code. A woman whose parents worked at Peterbilt just told the president her son works there too.

Three generations of one Texas family working for the same American truck maker is an argument no economist’s model can wave away.

Sources

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