Donald Trump: UAW negotiations 'don't mean as much as you think'

Clinton Township — Republican Donald Trump railed against electric vehicles during a campaign stop in suburban Detroit Wednesday night, saying they're too expensive, aren't capable of traveling far enough and would spur job losses for Americans.

Trump, a former president who's seeking to challenge current Democratic President Joe Biden next year, made the comments during a speech at Drake Enterprises, a parts supplier in Clinton Township. Amid a historic strike by the United Auto Workers against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, Trump said: "Your current negotiations don’t mean as much as you think."

Trump argued that regardless of the outcome of the strike, the bigger threat to employees was the shift to electric cars and trucks, which he described as a "hit job" on Michigan and Detroit.

"You can be loyal to American labor or you can be loyal to the environmental lunatics," Trump said at one point. "But you can’t really be loyal to both. It’s one or the other."

Biden and other Democrats, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, have promoted the transition to electric vehicles and sought to compete with other countries to produce them. Whitmer has said switching to electric vehicles will save families money over the lifetime of the vehicles, support tens of thousands of well-paying auto jobs in Michigan and help "safeguard clean air and water for future generations."

Trump's speech Wednesday night was about an hour long. He described a future "fueled by American energy" and "built by highly skilled American hands and high-wage American labor.” But his address was short on specifics for how he would accomplish the goals.

Trump's visit came a day after Biden appeared on a picket line in Wayne County and told members of the United Auto Workers union they deserved a "significant raise." On Wednesday, Trump said he supported the push for fair wages but added that workers should be concerned about the promotion of electric vehicles.

Kevin Munoz, spokesman for Biden's reelection campaign, described the speech as "incoherent" and "a pathetic, recycled attempt to feign support for working Americans."

"Americans have seen him try this before, and they aren’t buying it," Munoz said. "They know who Donald Trump really is: a billionaire charlatan running on empty words, broken promises and lost jobs."

During his remarks, Trump heaped blame on Biden and encouraged the crowd to get the UAW to endorse him.

He told workers to reach out to Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, and tell him if the union backs Trump, Fain could take a vacation and they would better off than they ever were. Trump later characterized the transition from gas engines to electric vehicles as "a transition to hell," a phrase he has repeated on the campaign trail this year.

"The auto industry is being assassinated," Trump said. "If you want to buy an electric car, that's absolutely fine. I'm all for it. But we should not be forcing consumers to buy electric vehicles they don't want to buy."

Nathan Stemple, president of Drake Enterprises, said it was "unbelievable" Drake had a chance to host the former president on Wednesday.

Among the products of Drake Enterprises are gear shift levers and transmission components for heavy trucks with gas-powered engines, according to the company's website. While Trump criticized Biden's push to support electric vehicles, Stemple said the transition is not his top cause of worry currently. The toughest obstacle for his company is finding the right workers, Stemple said ahead of Trump's speech.

"It would definitely affect us if it changed like a light switch," Stemple said of moving to electric vehicles. "I don’t see that happening.”

About 400 to 500 Trump supporters were inside a Drake Enterprises facility for the speech. Drake Enterprises employs about 150 people, and the UAW doesn't represent its workforce. It wasn't clear how many auto workers were in the crowd for the speech, which was targeted at them.

One individual in the crowd who held a sign that said "union members for Trump," acknowledged that she wasn't a union member when approached by a Detroit News reporter after the event. Another person with a sign that read "auto workers for Trump" said he wasn't an auto worker when asked for an interview. Both people didn't provide their names.

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One of the attendees for Trump's speech, Doug King, a 55-year-old auto worker from Clawson, said ultimately, consumers, not the government, should decide which vehicles to purchase.

King said he supported Trump's efforts to pressure auto manufacturers to keep jobs in the United States during his term in the White House.

“The four years under Trump were the best years that we had in the auto industry," contended King, who works for Stellantis.

But Democrats blasted Trump's record on manufacturing. U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham, said while Trump had claimed to support to support union workers, he didn't even go to a union facility.

Biden's reelection team announced Wednesday morning, about 14 hours before Trump's speech at 8 p.m. in Macomb County, that it was launching its first Michigan-focused TV ad of the 2024 race. Entitled "Delivers," the commercial accuses Trump of passing tax breaks for "rich friends" while automakers shuttered plants and Michigan lost manufacturing jobs.

"Manufacturing is coming back to Michigan because Joe Biden doesn't just talk, he delivers," says the new ad, which will air in the Detroit, Grand Rapids and Lansing markets.

While Trump was president from 2017 to 2021, Ford's engine plant in Romeo shuttered and GM shuttered a transmission plant in Warren, a powertrain plant in Baltimore and closed its Lordstown, Ohio assembly plant. Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) opened a new Jeep plant on Detroit's east side, while idling its Mount Elliott Tool & Die plant.

While Biden has been president, Stellantis idled its one part of its Trenton engine plant last year and its Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois in February.

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is rolling out billboards in Metro Detroit that criticize Trump's approach to autos. One says "thousands" of auto workers were laid off while Trump was president and includes the words "promises broken."

Going electric

The early Democratic barrage, about 13 months before the November 2024 election, was likely meant to preempt Trump's address on Wednesday night.

The former president's stop happened 13 days into the United Auto Workers strike against GM, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis NV, a day after Biden visited the picket line in Michigan and on the night of the second Republican presidential primary debate, in which Trump didn't participate.

A past report from the United Auto Workers acknowledged the shift to electric vehicles means replacing key powertrain components, such as engines, with mechanically simpler lithium-ion batteries and electric motors.

"Whereas traditional powertrains have often been made by automakers themselves and created quality union jobs, EV batteries are mostly made by suppliers in other countries, with China in the lead," the report said.

Biden's administration has attempted to promote the use of electric vehicles, but it's also invested in building the cars and trucks in the U.S. In August, Biden signed a $280 billion bipartisan bill to boost domestic high-tech manufacturing in a bid to help the country compete with China.

More:Biden's message to striking auto workers: 'You deserve a significant raise'

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More:GOP lawmakers threaten to call Ford CEO before Congress over Chinese battery tech

So far, the number of jobs in vehicle and parts manufacturing in Michigan has held essentially steady during Biden's term in the White House, increasing by 2% to about 169,000 jobs in August, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During Trump's four-year term, the number of jobs in vehicle and parts manufacturing in Michigan fell by 5% to about 166,000, according to the bureau's tracking. But the industry was still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021 when Trump left office.

Kristina Karamo, chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, defended the former president Wednesday, saying now, both parents in a family have to work and people are still struggling to afford to get by.

There's been a shift within the GOP in favor of protecting workers and opposing "crony capitalism," Karamo said.

Asked if she would ever show up on a UAW picket line, Karamo replied, "I don’t know. … I don’t know. What I don’t like is that the UAW continues to back candidates who harm the economy.”

'The way it was'

Trump has often touted his administration's efforts to rework trade deals in ways that he said would benefit manufacturing in the U.S. For instance, during Trump's tenure, automakers and groups that lobby for the industry hailed the passage of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 that Trump railed against in his successful 2016 campaign for the White House.

Retired auto worker Brian Pannebecker of Harrison Township helped recruit people to attend Trump's event on Wednesday. Pannebecker said he expected about 300 auto workers to show up. And he touted Trump's efforts to renegotiate trade deals.

Pannebecker said it was rare for a candidate for president to get to hold an event focused on workers inside a company's facility in Michigan, like Trump did Wednesday.

"The auto plants typically don’t let a candidate campaign in their plants," Pannebecker said.

Rachel Case, who said she worked at a truck plant in Flint, drove to Macomb County to try to get into Trump's speech. Case said she wants to see prices for items, like milk, go back to where they were before Biden's term.

“I would hope that he could bring it back to the way it was,” Case said of Trump.

But, on Tuesday, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, criticized Trump's past stances on auto jobs in the U.S.

"I find it odd he’s gonna go to a non-union business to talk to union workers," Fain added of Trump's visit. "I don’t think he gets it."

More:UAW's Fain likens auto talks, strike to World War II 'Arsenal of Democracy'

cmauger@detroitnews.com

Staff Writers Riley Beggin, Jordyn Grzelewski and Breana Noble contributed.