Trump-Vance Manufacturing Plan: Put Workers Last By Letting Plants Shutter (Again)

As Donald Trump visits Michigan today after JD Vance indicated he will let manufacturing plants in the state close again, DNC Rapid Response Spokesperson Addison Dick released the following statement: 

“Donald Trump broke promise after promise to workers across the country during his four years in office, and JD Vance is making clear a Trump-Vance ticket would repeat those same failures once again by letting manufacturing plants close across Michigan. America already lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs under Trump’s watch – and voters in Michigan and across America will not let Trump double down on his disastrous record of job losses and outsourcing when they reject him at the polls this November.”

TODAY: Donald Trump is visiting Michigan after JD Vance yesterday indicated that Trump will once again let manufacturing plants in Michigan close.

Detroit News: “Vance won’t commit to $500M federal grant for building EVs at Michigan auto plant”

“Republican vice presidential hopeful JD Vance would not commit a second Trump administration to honoring the Biden administration’s $500 million federal grant to General Motors Co. to convert a Cadillac sedan assembly plant in Michigan into a future electric vehicle plant.

“The Biden administration has said the conversion of GM’s Lansing Grand River Plant to assembling EVs would save 650 jobs and create 50 new positions. The Detroit automaker has signaled the assembled battery packs for the Lansing plant would come from the new battery plant it is constructing in nearby Delta Township, west of Lansing…

“Vance’s comments on EVs while in Michigan on Wednesday tracked with Trump’s criticism of the Biden administration’s incentives for automakers to produce more electric vehicles.

“The Biden administration has not imposed a ban on gas-powered vehicle or required consumers to purchase EVs. But it has put in place numerous incentives and restrictions on future tailpipe emissions that incentivized automakers to build and sell more EVs.”

The Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda would repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and threaten a $500 million investment in Vance’s hometown.

New York Times: “Ohio Reaps Benefits From a Climate Law JD Vance Repeatedly Attacks”

“Despite Mr. Vance’s critiques, residents in his state — including in the senator’s hometown, Middletown, Ohio — have been big beneficiaries of Mr. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Many local leaders and residents say they do not want to see the new investments, which are already starting to revitalize the local economy, disappear…

“Among the companies benefiting is the steel manufacturer Cleveland-Cliffs, whose facility in Middletown was awarded a grant of up to $500 million from the Energy Department. The grant is intended to help the company upgrade its steel mill so that it can use cleaner fuels like hydrogen or natural gas instead of coke derived from coal. The project is expected to create about 170 permanent jobs and up to 1,200 temporary union construction jobs. The $500 million grant, which was awarded through a program largely funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, would benefit a steel mill where Mr. Vance’s grandfather once worked.”

Washington Post: “JD Vance vowed to ‘never forget’ Middletown. Some say he already has.”

“Vance has assailed the [IRA], saying it is ‘dumb, does nothing for the environment and will make us all poorer.’ Trump has vowed, if elected, to block the distribution of unspent funds, a move that could cut off Middletown.”

Financial Times: “Donald Trump would gut Joe Biden’s landmark IRA climate law if elected”

WBUR: “Project 2025 also calls for the repeal of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.”

REMINDER: Trump’s disastrous record includes offshored jobs, shuttered factories, and manufacturing job losses in Michigan and across the country.

Federal Economic Data: “Michiganders lost 31,000 manufacturing jobs over the course of Trump’s presidency.”

MLive: “On the 2016 campaign trail in Warren, Trump pledged ‘you won’t lose one plant’ if he were elected. GM announced last year it would end production at five North American plants.”

CNN: “Trump told GM workers he could save their plant, but it’s gone for good”

“Manufacturing activity in September [of 2019] fell to its lowest point in a decade. The Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, which Trump flipped, have all lost manufacturing jobs since June. Many of those jobs have moved overseas.”

Wall Street Journal: “President Trump’s trade war against China didn’t achieve the central objective of reversing a U.S. decline in manufacturing, economic data show, despite tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods to discourage imports.”

Detroit Free Press: “Trump, tweets couldn’t save U.S. auto jobs in 2017”

New York Times: “After Years of Growth, Automakers Are Cutting U.S. Jobs”

Bloomberg: “The Offshoring of U.S. Jobs Increased on Trump’s Watch”

Washington Post: “Trump promised ‘America First’ would keep jobs here. But the tax plan might push them overseas.”

Bureau of Labor Statistics: “When Trump left office, there were over 170,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than when he started.”

Trump was one of the most anti-worker and anti-union presidents in American history — and Vance also stands firmly against working people.

Trump: “I know the unions. They’re dues-sucking people. They just want their dues and they couldn’t care less.”

New York Times: “Does [Trump] support unions? He has had ‘great success’ in New York building with unions and also in Florida without unions. ‘If I had my choice,’ he said, ‘I think I’d take it without.’”

Associated Press: “During Trump’s presidency, the National Labor Relations Board reversed several key rulings that made it easier for small unions to organize, strengthened the bargaining rights of franchise workers and provided protection against anti-union measures for employees.

“The Supreme Court’s conservative majority — including three justices that Trump nominated — overturned a decades-old pro-union decision in 2018 involving fees paid by government workers. The justices in 2021 rejected a California regulation giving unions access to farm property so they could organize workers.”

Politico: “Vance has consistently opposed the PRO Act, the ‘holy grail of pro-union labor reform’ that organized labor and its allies on the Hill have been fighting for over two years to get passed. … Vance’s skepticism of the PRO Act is part of a more fundamental skepticism that he harbors toward organized labor.”

Fast Company: “Vance also voted in favor of a resolution to strike down the NLRB’s updated joint-employer rule, which would have given workers more leverage when organizing at companies—like Amazon—that rely heavily on third-party contractors, by forcing both employers to participate in labor negotiations.”

Trump’s MAGAnomics tax scam rigged the economy for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations while leaving working families behind and skyrocketing the deficit.

The Guardian: “Donald Trump’s $1.5tn tax cuts have helped billionaires pay a lower rate than the working class for the first time in history.”

CBS News: “Two years after Trump tax cuts, middle-class Americans are falling behind”

Washington Post Analysis: “One of President Donald Trump’s lesser-known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt. The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office.

“The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center…

The combination of Trump’s 2017 tax cut and the lack of any serious spending restraint helped both the deficit and the debt soar.”

Vance: “The left attacked Donald Trump for those tax cuts and said they would make the deficit worse when in reality we took in more revenue because the government got out of the way on the regulatory side and the tax cuts spurred a lot of growth which means more people working, which meant more economic production which meant the entire economy was healthier… I think we have a pretty common sense regulatory and tax agenda.”

New York Times: “The 2017 corporate tax cuts signed into law by Mr. Trump have not increased government revenue … In fact, they have had the opposite effect.”

The Trump-Vance ticket now wants to enact their extreme and expensive Project 2025 agenda that would rig the economy for the ultra-wealthy again and risk supercharging inflation.

Axios: “Trump’s inflation bomb: How his second-term plans could make it worse”

The Atlantic: “Trump’s Plan to Supercharge Inflation”

Wall Street Journal: “A drumbeat of reports from Wall Street economists have warned that Trump’s plans could substantially slow economic growth while driving up consumer prices.”

CNBC: “Trump budget would spike deficits by nearly 5 times Harris proposal, says Penn Wharton”

Washington Post: “Trump and his advisers have discussed deeper cuts to both individual and corporate tax rates that would build on his controversial 2017 tax law … Further cutting corporate taxes … would primarily benefit large firms.”

Trump: “You’re all people that have a lot of money… You’re rich as hell.… We’re gonna give you tax cuts.”

Vanity Fair: “Donald Trump Wants to Give His Favorite Corporations Another Giant Tax Cut in a Second Term: Report”

Vance on Trump’s plan that would raise tariffs and raise costs for hardworking Americans: “This is a fascinating proposal and we could talk for a while about it.”

Vance: “I’ve reviewed a lot of [Project 2025]. There’s some good ideas in there.”

New York Times: “Senator JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate, denied in an interview with NBC News on Sunday that tariffs had caused higher costs for Americans, as economists have documented.”