Speaking to workers amid UAW strike, Trump blasts Biden, transition to electric vehicles

Former President Donald Trump, speaking Wednesday night at a nonunion plant in Macomb County amid a UAW strike against the Detroit Three automakers, delivered a rollicking, bellicose speech to workers against automakers' and the President Joe Biden administration's efforts to push a transition to electric vehicles and repeatedly urged union officials to endorse him.

Staying true to recent statements, Trump continued to hammer at a message claiming that electric vehicles, or EVs, would kill the American auto industry, despite the fact that sales of U.S. EVs reached 9% of new car sales in the second quarter and billions being invested in dozens of new or planned battery and other EV plants across the country in recent months, in part because of subsidies provided by the Biden administration.

"He (Biden) wants electric vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the American auto industry," said Trump, who is running for reelection next year. "I want a future that protects American labor, not foreign labor. A future that puts American dreams over foreign profits and a future that raises American wages ... and defends this country's dignity."

"The workers of our country are, to put it nicely, getting screwed," Trump said.

Trump's speech was peppered with exaggerations about his record in protecting auto jobs but the former president did lay out an argument, if one he failed to fully explain: The demands being made by the UAW won't matter if workers and union leaders don't insist that gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles remain a big part of the future because ultimately those EVs won't be made in the U.S.

"It doesn‘t matter what the hell you’re getting an hour," he said. "Just get your union guys, your leaders, to endorse me and I’ll take care of the rest."

He went on to say that he has nothing against EVs but that they should remain an option, not a mandate. "If you want to buy an electric vehicle or a hybrid… you should have that choice, it’s great… (but) we have unlimited gasoline, remember that. For 500 years, we have gasoline, more than any other country in the world," he said.

"There's no such thing as a fair transition to the end of your way of life," Trump said, in what may have been his most powerful line of the night. "It’s a transition to hell, a transition to unemployment, to inflation."

Trump spoke for a little over an hour at Drake Enterprises, a nonunionized manufacturer in Clinton Township specializing in producing engine, transmission and gearshift components for heavy trucks and agricultural vehicles. He hit many of the same themes he did in past campaigns, namely the need to protect American jobs. But this time, he spoke even more forcefully as an enemy of what he called "ultra-liberal globalism."

The former president — who Wednesday skipped the second Republican presidential debate being held in California — didn't specifically address demands made by autoworkers, other than to say he would protect jobs in a way that would lead to higher wages. But he left it unclear how he would do so, given that he didn't demand specific wage increases as president.

"It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what you get (in negotiations) because in two years you’re all going to be out of business, you’re not getting anything," Trump said. "I side with the autoworkers of America and with those who want to make America great again and I always will.

"They want to go all electric and put you all out of business," he said.

Trump’s visit to Michigan, announced early last week and touted as a meeting with current and former union members, came a day after Biden, voicing support for the workers, took the historically unprecedented step of joining striking employees on a GM picket line, in what is now a 13-day strike against the Detroit Three automakers. It was believed no sitting president had ever taken such an action before.

The two visits underscore the importance of Michigan and the industrial Midwest in next year's election. Trump won Michigan in 2016; Biden flipped it back to the Democratic column in 2020.

Now, the UAW strike is becoming a political battle as much as a labor negotiation.

Last Friday, the union expanded its strike to include 38 parts distribution centers at General Motors and Stellantis. Ford Motor Co. wasn’t included in the expansion, as union leaders cited progress in bargaining discussions with the company, but UAW President Shawn Fain on Wednesday left open the prospect of further expanding the strike targets this Friday.

Biden's visit to the picket line was brief, only about 10 minutes long. But with him wearing a UAW hat and shaking hands with striking workers, it was a far different scene than Trump's nighttime rally. For one, it wasn't immediately clear how many of the people in attendance were union autoworkers or not, even though it's believed that Trump, in some past elections, has drawn more support from manufacturing union rank-and-file than previous Republicans.

Part of that, no doubt, stemmed from Trump's aggressive stance toward stopping manufacturing jobs, including auto jobs, from moving out of the U.S., and that still speaks to many autoworkers.

Chris Vitale, 50, is a member of UAW Local 412 and works at the Chrysler Technology Center in Auburn Hills. Ahead of Trump's rally, he said he backs the former president because he has consistently raised concerns about trade issues, particularly products not being manufactured in the U.S. and a growing focus on what he called "uncompetitive products."

"EVs are millionaires' toys right now," Vitale said. "They're a toy for the upper middle class."

Vitale, who wore a red "Autoworkers for Trump" shirt, said more and more union members are supporting Trump and that Democrats have taken union members' votes for granted for too long.

About 10 minutes before Trump's speech, the crowd looked to be at its originally planned number of 500. Some in the crowd wore red hats, and many of those standing on risers next to the stage held blue-and-yellow signs reading "Union Members for Trump."

Attendees included former Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, former MIGOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock and current chair Kristina Karamo. Before the event, Karamo said Trump's remarks to striking autoworkers are a sign Republicans can be pro-business and pro-worker: "We're populists," she said.

But Trump has been sharply criticized by UAW members and leadership as well. He largely stayed out of the UAW's six-week strike against GM in 2019 when he was president, and statements he has made in the past — such that auto jobs should go to parts of the country where the union is weaker, forcing wages down — have been seen as more corporate-friendly than worker-friendly.

In contrast to Biden, who won Fain's thanks for showing up on a picket line Tuesday and telling workers that the Detroit Three “are doing incredibly well and, guess what, you should be doing incredibly well, too," union leaders gave Trump the cold shoulder this week. After previously noting the Biden administration was not part of negotiations, Fain stood with the president outside a GM parts center on Tuesday and spoke as well.

"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 has said. On Wednesday, the union's lead negotiator in talks with GM sent the Free Press a scathing, profanity-laden email about Trump's visit.

"Let me be blunt. Donald Trump is coming off as a pompous (expletive)," UAW Vice President Mike Booth wrote. "Coming to Michigan to speak at a nonunion employer and pretending it has anything to do with our fight at the Big Three is just more verbal diarrhea from the former president."

Trump said he had "no problems with them but they have to endorse (me) because if they don’t they’re committing suicide."

As his motorcade left the industrial park housing Drake Enterprises, hundreds of supporters stood in near-lashing rain to applaud the former president.

Leading up to his visit, it wasn't just the UAW blasting Trump. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who was on the picket line with workers on Wednesday, said: “The idea that Donald Trump has ever, or will ever, care about working people is demonstrably false. For his entire time as president, he actively sought to roll back worker protections, wages and the right to join a union at every level." Democratic leaders, meanwhile, argued that Trump's tax cut benefited wealthy Americans far more than workers and worked to restrict union rights.

Biden's reelection campaign took out a Michigan-based TV ad ahead of Trump's visit, targeting what it called the former president's "anti-labor, anti-worker record."

Trump, however, did take some steps intended to keep more manufacturing in the U.S., including rewriting the North American Free Trade Agreement and putting in place some tariffs on overseas products. It's unclear whether those actions will pay off in the long run; tariffs already are believed to cost U.S. consumers more.

But Trump's campaign speeches in 2020 vastly exaggerated his record in creating auto jobs or plants. Even before the pandemic struck and shuttered auto plants, auto jobs under Trump grew by only about 3.4% nationwide and shrunk in Michigan from 175,000 to about 171,000. During Biden's tenure, auto employment has grown by more than 13% nationwide and gone from 166,000 to about 169,000 in Michigan, though that is still less than the pre-pandemic figure.

While Trump has lambasted the electrification of the automotive industry, Fain said in August the UAW welcomes the transition to electric vehicles, so long as union workers play a role in their manufacturing. Biden, too, has said he believes that a new national fleet of EVs should be built by union labor — but that is something outside his control.

However, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party have made the transition to EVs a priority as a means of addressing climate change, including an EPA proposal that could theoretically require two-thirds of all new cars and trucks sold to be EVs within a decade, a remarkable transformation if it comes to pass − especially given concerns by some about the range and expense of current vehicles. Legislation championed by Biden and passed by the last Democratic-led Congress, meanwhile, have pumped billions into subsidies for new American EV plants, especially those where older plants are modernized, and a network of charging stations. Congress also passed incentives for people to buy American-made EVs to help smooth the transition.

Still, it's also true that the move to EVs could result in fewer auto jobs as those vehicles require fewer workers than internal combustion engine cars and trucks. And many of the new battery plants are being planned in areas of the country, like the South, where the UAW has had difficulty organizing new plants. That said, the new national contract isn't expected to specifically address battery plants run by joint ventures started by the automakers; it could, though, exact guarantees to keep existing plants open.

Automakers in negotiations with the Detroit Three continued to keep their distance from both Biden and Trump as this week's political parade played out in metro Detroit.

GM spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan provided the same statement to both visits, saying, "Our focus is not on politics but continues to be on bargaining in good faith with the UAW leadership to reach an agreement as quickly as possible that rewards our workforce and allows GM to succeed and thrive into the future."

Ford spokesman T.R. Reid said, "No change from what we’ve said the past couple of days: Ford and the UAW are going to be the ones to solve this by finding creative solutions to tough issues together at the bargaining table."

Stellantis officials did not comment on Trump's visit.

Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com. Follow him on X (Twitter) @arpanlobo.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Speaking in Macomb County, Trump blasts Biden, transition to EVs