CLINTON TWP., Mich. (WWJ) – Former President Donald Trump took a stand against electric vehicles during his Wednesday night visit to Michigan, saying the push towards EVs will doom the American auto industry.
A day after President Joe Biden visited with UAW members in Belleville, Mich., outside a GM parts plant, Trump on Wednesday delivered a speech to a few hundred current and former union members at a non-union shop in Clinton Township.
Speaking at Drake Enterprises – which makes numerous components, including gear shift levers, transmission parts and other components for heavy duty truck parts – Trump said “what they’re doing to the auto industry in Michigan and throughout the country is absolutely horrible and ridiculous.”
Trump was quick to point the finger at Biden, saying “it’s his policies that send Michigan auto workers to the unemployment line” and that American workers are getting, “to put it very nicely, screwed.”
“He wants electric vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the U.S. auto industry,” Trump said, claiming the UAW’s strike – now approaching the two-week mark as they fight for better wages and benefits – “doesn’t matter.”
“You know, it doesn’t matter. I watch you’re negotiating a contract and you’re all on picket lines and everything, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what you get because in two years you’re all gonna be out of business. You’re not getting anything,” Trump said.
His remarks come just a week after automakers – including the Detroit Three: Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – showed off their latest innovations in the EV market. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Michigan officials have been pushing for the automakers to bring EV plants and projects to bring business and jobs to the state.
But Trump says that push will destroy jobs in Michigan. And he claims the executives at those companies “immediately quit” and gave in to the push for EVs.
“They say, ‘you want electric cars? We’ll give it to you,’ when the damn things don’t go far enough and they’re too expensive,” Trump said. “I’m not in that business, but I know a lot about it – they don’t go far enough and they’re too expensive. A vote for crooked Joe means the future of the auto industry will be made in China. That’s what it’s gonna be. That’s where they’re made.”
As the former president skipped out on Wednesday night’s Republican Presidential Debate in California, he went on to say “a vote for Trump means the future of the automobile will be made in America.”
Drake Enterprises President said a shift to EVs would cripple his company, according to a report from the Associated Press. makes automotive and heavy-duty truck components, including gear shift levers for semi-trucks, said its president Nathan Stemple, who noted a shift to electric cars would cripple him.
While UAW President Shawn Fain met with Biden on the Picket line Tuesday, he had strong words against Trump in a recently issued statement, according to The Detroit News.
"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," the statement said. "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."
According to the AP report, when Trump aides announced details of his visit to Michigan, they said his audience would include several hundred current and former UAW members, as well as members of plumbers and pipefitters unions. But Wednesday's crowd also included many non-union workers who support the former president, according to the report.
Some said they had been invited by people who did business with Drake, while others said "they had simply arrived at the factory Wednesday afternoon and been allowed to attend," the report said,