As the UAW’s strike against the Detroit Three automakers approaches the two-week mark, former President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak to a crowd of roughly 500 current and former union members in Metro Detroit Wednesday night.
Trump will speak at 8 p.m. at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township. Drake Enterprises, a non-union plant, makes numerous components, including gear shift levers, transmission parts and other components, according to its website.
Like last month’s Republican debate in Milwaukee when he instead participated in a taped interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump will skip Wednesday’s debate in California to make his speech in Metro Detroit.
Trump’s trip to Michigan – a battleground state in the coming 2024 Presidential election – comes just a day after President Joe Biden visited picketing UAW workers at GM’s Willow Run Parts Redistribution Center in Belleville.
Oakland University history professor and automotive labor historian Daniel Clark says Trump is “competing for some of the same constituents” as Biden, but the two will have “very different messages.”
While Biden told workers on the picket line Tuesday they “deserve what you’ve earned – and you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you’re getting paid now,” Trump’s speech may have a different tone Wednesday night.
When asked about the ongoing strike in an interview earlier this month, Trump told NBC News auto workers “will not have any jobs” because “electric cars, automatically, are going to be made in China.”
“The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump,” Trump said in the interview.
“The reason is, you’ve got to have choice,” he added. “Like in school. I want school choice. I also want choice for cars. If somebody wants gasoline, if somebody wants all electric, they can do whatever they want. But they’re destroying the consumer and they’re destroying the auto worker.”
As the UAW aims for higher wages, cost of living allocations, better benefits and more amid record automaker profits, union President Shawn Fain has not endorsed a candidate. He did, however, say striking workers should not buy into Trump's comments, given that the former president does not represent working-class people, according to a report from The Detroit Free Press.
“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers," Fain said, according to the report. "We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”
While Clark told WWJ on Tuesday it isn’t unusual for candidates to make these types of visits during primary season, the fact that it’s happening during a strike is surprising.
“It’s very unusual for an American president to visit a picket line. I don’t think it’s ever happened before. In the longest arc of American history, presidents might have been more likely to send troops to break a strike back in the 19th century. So that’s a big deal for a president to show some support for striking workers,” Clark said.