Trump Aims Economic Speech at Lansing Region, Which Scored Big EV Investment
August 29, 2024
*Photo credit: David Guralnick, The Detroit News
The Detroit News Aug. 29, 2024 Craig Mauger and Kalea Hall
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has repeatedly criticized electric vehicles, will give an address on the economy and manufacturing Thursday in a region of Michigan that’s slated to benefit from large government investments in EV technology.
The circumstances of Trump’s campaign visit could fuel debate over conflicting visions for the future of Michigan’s auto industry that are emerging in the 2024 election: Republicans warning the move toward electric vehicles will cost jobs, and Democrats contending that if political leaders don’t support the transition, the U.S. will face long-term economic repercussions in a global race with China for EV market dominance.
Trump is scheduled to speak at 3:30 p.m. at Alro Steel, a metals-processing plant in Potterville.
The facility is about six miles from where both federal and state financial support is assisting General Motors Co. with the construction of a plant to produce electric vehicle lithium-ion battery cells in Delta Township. The project will generate a total investment of $2.6 billion and create 1,700 jobs, according to its backers.
The venue for Trump’s remarks on Thursday is also about 13 miles from GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly. GM is receiving a $500 million federal grant from Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration — through a policy for which Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote — to convert the plant from making internal combustion engine cars to producing electric vehicles, according to a July announcement.
GM’s projects make Lansing poised to “lead the nation in electric vehicle technology,” the city’s mayor, Democrat Andy Schor, said in a statement in July.
“It’s creating jobs,” Schor told reporters Wednesday. “It’s putting good paying jobs out there. It’s putting food on the table for workers. And the workers, all throughout the area, are benefiting.
“It’s a little bit baffling that he would come here and have this message of anti-EV, when we know this is the future, and we know it’s employing workers, whether you’re in a blue city or a red city or a blue township or a red township,” Schor added of Trump. “It’s employing workers all around our region. So he’s going to come in and bash it when we benefit from it.”
During a campaign stop in Macomb County last September, Trump characterized the transition from gas engines to EVs as “a transition to hell.” He argued the shift to battery-electric cars and trucks represented a “hit job” on Michigan and Detroit.
The former president has previously said the key materials needed for EVs are in China, not the U.S., and it requires fewer workers to produce EVs than traditional gas-powered cars and trucks.
Asked on Wednesday if Trump supports tax credits for EV purchases or government incentives for EV projects, Victoria LaCivita, the Trump campaign’s Michigan spokeswoman, said Trump “will end Kamala Harris’ disastrous Green New Deal policies and her administration’s war on energy, which contributed to the inflation mess we’ve found ourselves in during Harris’s time in office.”
“Under President Trump, we will unleash American energy and give the auto industry the tools to be bigger, better and stronger,” LaCivita said.
‘Not just my opinion’
Efforts by the Biden-Harris administration to promote electric vehicles have been on display in the Lansing area. In January, Lansing was awarded $8 million to increase publicly available EV charging stations.
The $500 million that will go to converting GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant for EV production came through the Inflation Reduction Act, a wide-ranging piece of legislation that Harris, the current vice president, cast the tie-breaking vote for in the U.S. Senate in August 2022.
The plant near downtown Lansing was one of 11 at-risk or shuttered U.S. automotive manufacturing sites receiving a total of $1.7 billion in federal grants distributed by the Energy Department’s Domestic Automotive Supply Chain Conversion Grants program from funding allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Currently, the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 cars are made at Lansing Grand River Assembly, where GM employs 1,000 workers. GM laid off 369 employees there earlier this year after the Detroit-based automaker halted production of the Chevrolet Camaro muscle car.
“The General Motors plant here in Lansing has been operating at lower capacity with only one or two shifts,” Schor said Wednesday. “That’s all going to change thanks to the Biden-Harris administration and the Inflation Reduction Act.”
The plant is slated to receive a $1.25 billion investment for future EVs, according to the GM-United Auto Workers union contract finalized last fall. Specific details on those EVs have not been released.
During a conference call with the media, organized by the Harris campaign, Schor said Trump would end tax credits for electric vehicles.
He also said Trump would “cede the industry to China.”
“That’s not just my opinion,” Schor said. “That’s according to board members at GM.”
Schor didn’t specify which board members he was referencing.
GM board member Jon McNeill told CNBC in May that any significant reduction of the Inflation Reduction Act’s support for electric vehicles would benefit China. McNeill is a former executive at Tesla Inc., the electric vehicle company run by Trump backer Elon Musk.
Trump has previously said he will issue a moratorium “upon taking office” on new spending and giveaways under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Brian Glick, vice president of Alro Steel, the business where Trump is speaking on Thursday, didn’t directly answer a question this week about whether Alro Steel is selling metal and plastic materials to customers for any projects that have been supported by the Inflation Reduction Act.
