Utah might be the blueprint for Trump’s ‘Made-in-America’ vision

President Donald Trump’s global trade architect heralded Utah as a model for the White House’s made-in-America vision during a two-day tour of the Beehive State’s steel manufacturing, mineral extraction and livestock industries.

After traveling the world over the past 18 months, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer took a break from his role as chief tariff negotiator to meet with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and business leaders to discuss next steps.

“They understand that manufacturing is coming back here,” Greer said in an exclusive Deseret News interview. “The reason I came here is because I knew there were all these great examples, and we want to showcase that.”

The Brigham Young University graduate made Utah his primary stop on his trip out West, after headlining an Aspen Security Forum panel on Wednesday. World Trade Center Utah organized his itinerary which crisscrossed the state.

Utah reflects Trump administration goals, Greer said, to bring new industries here — and keep old ones from dying.

Greer visited the Provo-based Ionic Mineral Technologies which announced to investors on Wednesday that an independent review found its mine containing 19 critical minerals has potential current profits of $12.1 billion.

Greer also followed a herd of sheep belonging to Jorgensen Farms in Mount Pleasant. Four days earlier, he requested the International Trade Commission to investigate whether surges in imports have damaged domestic sheep suppliers.

While Greer dug into industry specifics during each of his five site tours, his aim was to see beyond the spreadsheets.

Greer’s work to reorder the international economy is driven by a deep belief that the way trade is structured does more than shift exports and alter costs. It determines what kind of Utah communities can exist and which will disappear.

Preserving a way of life

For nearly two centuries, Carson Jorgensen’s family has made a living by raising and shearing sheep in the idyllic Sanpete Valley. But a “strategic” effort by companies in Australia and New Zealand could bring it to an end, he said.

Over the past 40 years, his farm has shrunk from around 22,000 head of livestock to 5,000. During that same time, the share of the U.S. market for lamb meat coming from other countries has increased from 40% to 70%.

Domestic production has continued to fall, even as demand goes up, because foreign farms face less regulation, fewer predators, more profits from Asian markets and better exchange rates with the U.S., Jorgensen said.

This has allowed non-American lamb to sell for up to 20% below domestic lamb. So, for the past three years Jorgensen — who said his grandpa “raised (him) on tariffs” — has led a nationwide initiative to preserve his livelihood.

In 2023, Jorgensen sent a letter signed by members of Utah’s federal delegation to the Biden administration requesting tariff rate quotas on sheep imports. After no response, he visited Greer with the same ask in May 2025.

This week, Greer launched a process that could result in tariffs against Oceania sheep that would do just that.

Like Greer, Jorgensen identifies as a conservative Republican. He chaired the Utah GOP from 2021 to 2023. But he said rural towns — where everyone works at a mine, school or ranch — understand something economists don’t.

“If one of those goes away, the whole thing dries up. And so does a community and so does a way of life,” he said. “My family’s been doing this for 170 years. And, you know, without some sort of protectionism we’re not gonna last.”

On Tuesday, a cast of Utah’s business elite questioned whether the uncertainty sparked by implementing a new tariff regime, and the higher costs paid by U.S. companies from the new taxes on imports, is worth all the pain.

In an armchair conversation with Greer on Thursday evening, Traeger Grills CEO Jeremy Andrus cited a Utah poll showing that two-thirds of businesses in the state reported that their revenues had declined due to tariffs.

But during his visits, Greer made it clear he wants to use the rest of Trump’s term to permanently reset the table.

Utah leads the way

For too long, American policymakers have turned a blind eye to the way free-market policies were creating an unfair market for essential U.S. industries, Greer said. Nowhere has this been more obvious than in national security.

The U.S. has outsourced nearly its entire supply chain for critical minerals used in defense technology to China, giving the adversarial country immense leverage to shut off access to the very resources America needs to compete.

Utah may be on the cusp of changing that. In December, Ionic Mineral Technologies announced the discovery of one of the country’s largest deposits of rare-earth minerals in the unique halloysite clay on the west side of Utah Lake.

The company is now well on its way to creating a vertically integrated process to produce aluminum and silicon, as well as gallium, germanium, rubidium and cesium, which are needed for computer chips and weapons systems.

None of these are currently mined in the U.S., which is 100% import reliant on China for most or all of them.

This is “America First at work,” Greer said. Another example Greer highlighted on Friday is Stadler Rail, a Swiss rail car manufacturer that decided to make Utah its North American headquarters after setting up shop in 2015.

Trump has touted more than $5 trillion in commitments from other nations to invest in the U.S., which has been accompanied by a jump in new foreign direct investment from $155 billion in 2024 to $232 billion in 2025.

Tariffs are not a fix-all. They boost demand for some products, while making troublesome loopholes for others.

Liberty Safe in Payson has grown to become America’s No. 1 safe manufacturer since 1988 all while taking pride in their “Made in America” label. The company builds its safes entirely on-site and sources most materials domestically.

Tariffs protecting steel plants have, in turn, supported Liberty Safe, which buys 20 million pounds of steel each year. But the company is still undercut by state-subsidized supply coming from China through neighboring countries.

Greer appeared frustrated upon learning this, like he was in the middle of playing a worldwide game of Whac-A-Mole.

Despite the unintended consequences of trade policy, Daren Youngblood, a Liberty Safe employee of 27 years, and a single dad, said his employment has more value than just the income it brings to him and his five children.

“It’s our livelihood, right?” he said. “That’s why we voted for Trump. ... And I’m glad he’s in there doing it.”