MORE NEWS: TRUMP LASHES OUT AT GOODYEAR ABOUT ITS POLICY ON ‘MAGA’ WEAR
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday urged people to boycott tires from Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., tweeting that the Ohio-based company had “announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS.”
But the company didn’t announce such a specific ban, only that it asks employees to refrain from workplace expressions involving political campaigns and “forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues.” “Make America Great Again,” or “MAGA,” is a Trump campaign slogan.
Trump’s tweet immediately sent the company’s stock downward. The stock trimmed its losses in the afternoon before closing down about 2.4% for the day.
“Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!),” Trump tweeted.
Trump’s tweet followed a report from WIBW television station in Topeka, Kansas, based on an anonymous Goodyear employee’s screenshot that listed Black Lives Matter and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride messages as acceptable while politically affiliated slogans and material, including “MAGA Attire” and “Blue Lives Matter,” in support of police, were listed as unacceptable. The screenshot was described in the report as part of the company’s diversity training.
The company said the material captured in the screenshot was not created or distributed by the company’s corporate offices or part of a diversity training class. It also stressed that it does ask its workers to “refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party, as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues.”
Trump’s presidential limousine, referred to as “The Beast,” uses Goodyear tires.
“I would swap them out, based on what I heard. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, said Trump had promised to bring manufacturing jobs back to Ohio, but instead was jeopardizing them.
“Goodyear employs thousands of American workers, including in Ohio, where it is headquartered. To President Trump, those workers and their jobs aren’t a source of pride, just collateral damage in yet another one of his political attacks,” Biden said.