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Trump Returns To Jobs For First 'Campaign' Speech Of 2017

After a somewhat tumultuous week in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump pushed an economic message during a "campaign" speech in South Carolina.
Posted at 8:09 PM, Feb 17, 2017
and last updated 2017-02-17 20:09:00-05

"We're here today to celebrate American engineering and American manufacturing. We're also here today to celebrate jobs," President Donald Trump said while visiting Boeing's South Carolina campus.

During Trump's first so-called "campaign" event of 2017, he returned to the linchpin of his presidential campaign: an American-made economy.

He praised Boeing for its newest Dreamliner series of planes, implying it was a symbol of the inevitable manufacturing renaissance.

Trump's return to economic rhetoric and a strict schedule of meetings with labor and business leaders comes after a difficult week in Washington, D.C., which included his pick for labor secretary withdrawing and the firing of his national security adviser. 

Former President Barack Obama made a similar visit to a Boeing campus several years ago, but he cautioned Americans about the rise of automation and the need for a new economic focus.