Donald Trump’s social media company outsourced jobs to Mexico despite the Republican presidential candidate’s threats to punish businesses who outsource jobs in such a fashion – and racist comments about Latinos during his campaign, ProPublica has reported.

A spokesperson for the company, Trump Media, confirmed the outsourced jobs to ProPublica – whose report arrived amid the former US president’s threats to impose steep tariffs on all items imported into the US, ostensibly to create more domestic jobs.

Trump Media’s workers in Mexico, which Trump claimed in 2015 was sending “drug dealers” and “rapists” to the US – produce code and perform other technical support, according to ProPublica. “Another entity” hired these workers, the investigative outlet said.

The outsourcing spurred a whistleblower letter to Trump Media’s board of directors, which ProPublica reported on in October. Staff at Trump Media – which owns the Truth Social platform – was reportedly outraged by the company’s use of overseas labor, believing that it flew in the face of its America first ideology.

Notably, Trump had previously reportedly threatened enormous tariffs on cars made in Mexico, saying: “I’ll put 200[%] or 500[%] – I don’t care.”

Upset Trump Media staff members also demanded the firing of their chief executive officer, the former Republican congressman Devin Nunes, claiming he ran the company poorly and had an “America last” philosophy with hiring. Nunes allegedly implemented a policy to utilize only foreign contractors, neglecting “American workers who are deeply committed to our mission”, said their letter, according to ProPublica.

“This approach not only contradicts the America First principles we stand for but also raises concerns about the quality, dedication, and alignment of our workforce with our core values,” ProPublica quoted the letter as saying.

Trump Media’s representative told ProPublica that there were “two individual workers” in Mexico and then railed against the outlet’s reporting.

“Presenting the fact that [Trump Media] works with precisely two specialist contractors in Mexico as some sort of sensational scandal is just the latest in a long line of defamatory conspiracy theories invented by the serial fabricators at ProPublica,” the spokesperson reportedly said.

The ProPublica report came just three days before Tuesday’s election between Trump and Kamala Harris for the White House. Throughout the campaign, Trump has gone on the attack against outsourcing, warning companies that there would be dire consequences if they moved jobs south of the border – and claiming at various times that his threats had protected US jobs.

Trump’s rhetoric about outsourcing has also invoked falsehoods, claiming in October that Chinese automakers were building expansive factories in Mexico. These cars, he claimed, would then enter the US without taxes.

The Associated Press, citing auto industry experts, reported that there were no such factories under construction. Rather, there was a single, small Chinese car assembly plant in Mexico.

Trump also claimed that the farm equipment manufacturer John Deere announced that it would probably scrap plans to move jobs to Mexico following his tariff threats. But John Deere told several outlets that the company had neither changed its plan nor announced any policy change, as CNN reported.

Trump Media’s employment of workers in Mexico also clashes with his anti-immigrant tirades throughout his campaign.

“All of our jobs are being taken by the migrants that come into our country illegally and many of those migrants happen to be criminals, and some of them happen to be murderers,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan on Friday.

No evidence shows immigrants to the US commit crimes at higher levels than people born with citizenship. And economic data does not support the claim that migrants are taking “all” US jobs.

Trump’s most incendiary comments about immigrants in his campaign against Harris lied about how immigrants in Ohio were “eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats”.

His camp has also incensed Latino US citizens. During a recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, the podcaster and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage”.