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Donald Trump talking to the Detroit Economic Club
Presidential candidate Donald Trump rolled into Motown again Thursday and showed his appalling lack of knowledge about Detroit, its people, and most shocking of all, the U.S. auto industry.
The Florida billionaire who professes to care about working class folks trashed Detroit, unaware of the city’s upward trajectory that would make San Francisco, Los Angeles, and residents of other major cities envious. Trump is unaware that many Detroiters love their city, and don’t appreciate an entitled politician coming to town to mercilessly trash it.
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if (Kamala Harris is) your president," Trump said during a speech at the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino Hotel. "You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan barked back in a video on Instagram that cities should be proud to be compared to Detroit.
“We just hosted the largest draft in NFL history, the Tigers are in the playoffs, the Lions are on their way to the Super bowl. We've got record low homicide rates and we're growing our population for the first time since the 1950s, and Detroit's done all of this without a bit of help from Donald Trump.”
Gov. Whitmer and GM CEO Mary Barra are blessed that Trump is a blowhard who just foams at the mouth with his freewheeling thoughts and ideas, rather than studies the issues looking for opportunities to exploit for political advantage.
A savvy and knowledgeable politician would have acknowledged and praised Detroit’s recovery and then slammed Barra for moving several thousands of jobs to Warren and elsewhere, courtesy of Whitmer. The Whitmer administration two years earlier removed a requirement that GM maintain a minimum of 4,000 RenCen jobs to remain in compliance with the provisions of the billions in subsidies the company gets from Michigan taxpayers.
Trump could have also noted that under Barra’s leadership, GM became Mexico’s biggest automotive manufacturer, where the company manufacturers its electric Blazer and Equinox SUVs and plans to assemble the Cadillac Optiq. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, which Kamala Harris boasts she championed, buyers of GM’s Mexican-made EVs are eligible for lucrative tax breaks.
Instead, Trump railed that the Detroit 3 automakers are “going out of business.” That’s hardly the case, although the industry is facing some headwinds.
“Our car industry will have a Renaissance, the likes of which we have never seen before in this country,” Trump told a sharply clad, mostly receptive group that included a few Democratic officials like U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Donald Trump said his plan to impose steep tariffs would “save” the U.S. auto industry “and bring millions and millions of jobs back to our shores, and very quickly.” He said if foreign leaders or CEOs complain about tariffs, he’ll tell them to "build it in America, build it in Detroit, build it in Dearborn, or Lansing, or Grand Rapids, or Flint."
Trump said he wants countries like Germany to worry about losing jobs to America. He said his plans to grow the auto industry includes giving large tax breaks for carmakers who build factories in America and do research and development domestically.
“My goal is to see U.S. auto manufacturing even greater than it was in its prime,” Trump said.
Trump offered few details about the scope of the tax breaks he envisions, and the potential dent they would place on the U.S. Treasury.
Trump is blissfully unaware that foreign automakers are already investing heavily in U.S. manufacturing. Indeed, Toyota has committed to spending some $20 billion on its electrification efforts in the U.S., possibly exceeding the combined EV investments of GM, Ford, and Stellantis. Hyundai and VW also are investing heavily in the U.S., albeit in the southern states.
Trump says he’s committed to keeping gas engine vehicles alive, but that’s akin to a politician in the early internet days saying they were committed to dial-up rather than embracing high speed internet. China can make sophisticated EVs with state-of-the-art technology for considerably less than GM and Ford, but Trump has offered no plans on how to foster a competitive U.S.-based EV auto industry.
Trump also hasn’t addressed what, if any, commitment he’d make to bolster America’s poor national charging network.
Trump told the audience he plans to make interest payments on car loans tax deductible, a move the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated could cost as much as $15 trillion over a decade. A separate analysis found that Trump’s plans would increase costs for a vast majority of Americans.
During his nearly two-hour speech, Trump meandered into familiar territory: He trashed the fake media, said his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris is “dumber than hell” and said, “we’re a nation in decline -- I hope you know that.”
He also said Democrats are against voter ID because they want to cheat in the election.
In his trademark persona, he boasted a lot, and said he was told by experts the only reason the stock market is doing so well is because polls showed him favored to win the election. He echoed his much repeated belief that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine and Hamas wouldn’t have dared attack Israel if he were in charge.
And on the latest inflation figures, he said they were far worse than expected last month, “double what was predicted,” when in fact, USA Today reported that inflation figures in September were the lowest in three years.The Wall Street Journal did, however, report that the consumer-price index rose 2.4 percent from a year earlier in September, after rising 2.5 percent in August. That was higher than the 2.3 percent rise that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected.
Trump’s clueless comments about Detroit put a bullseye on his back and there was no shortage of politicians who took aim.
Besides Duggan, Democratic State Sen. Mallory McMorrow weighed in, saying on X: “As a proud elected representative of tens of thousands of Detroiters: Fuck this guy. Don’t come back.”
Gov. Whitmer wrote on X: Gretchen Whitmer: Detroit is the epitome of “grit,” defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities—something Donald Trump could never understand.
Polls show Trump is running a close race with Kamala Harris in Michigan and other do-or-die swing states.
