(C) Common Dreams
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Vance won't commit to $500M federal grant for building EVs at Michigan auto plant [1]
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Date: 2024-10-02
Craig Mauger, Sarah Leach and Chad Livengood
The Detroit News
Wright Township — Republican vice presidential hopeful JD Vance would not commit a second Trump administration to honoring the Biden administration's $500 million federal grant to General Motors Co. to convert a Cadillac sedan assembly plant in Michigan into a future electric vehicle plant.
In July, President Joe Biden's administration announced a $500 million grant for GM to subsidize the conversion of its Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant into an EV plant. It was part of $1.7 billion in grants the Biden administration doled out through its "supply chain conversion" to incentivize automakers to invest in EVs.
During two campaign stops Wednesday in Oakland and Ottawa counties, reporters with The Detroit News asked Vance whether former President Donald Trump would have the federal government involved in subsidizing the transition to electric vehicles as Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump's opponent, have done.
In Auburn Hills, speaking to supporters inside an aerospace supplier's plant, Vance said any subsidy of the EV industry should benefit an American supply chain of companies and workers.
"I think there's certainly a role — and I believe this and I know Donald Trump believes this — in encouraging innovation," Vance said. "But there's a difference between promoting innovations and sending hundreds of billions of dollars to favored industries that make their products in China. These are two very, very different things."
Later in the day, a Detroit News reporter asked a more specific question about the grant for GM's Lansing Grand River Plant and Vance was noncommittal on whether a second Trump administration would honor or cancel the grant.
"First of all, the $500 million grant came along with some really ridiculous strings and no protections for American jobs not getting shipped to foreign countries because a lot of not just the cars themselves, but the battery components, the minerals, this stuff is all produced in China, and so when we write massive checks on American taxpayer expense to these companies, a lot of times what we're doing is selling American middle class jobs to the Communist Chinese, and we ought to be doing exactly the opposite," said Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio.
"We ought to be rebuilding the American middle class and investing in our own workers, not shipping our tax dollars off to electric vehicles made in China."
The Biden administration has said the conversion of GM's Lansing Grand River Plant to assembling EVs would save 650 jobs and create 50 new positions. The Detroit automaker has signaled the assembled battery packs for the Lansing plant would come from the new battery plant it is constructing in nearby Delta Township, west of Lansing.
GM currently builds the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans at Lansing Grand River, after ending production of the Chevrolet Camaro muscle car in December. The company has not said when it would carry the conversion of the Lansing assembly plant and stop production the Cadillac sedans. A company spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vance's comments on EVs while in Michigan on Wednesday tracked with Trump's criticism of the Biden administration's incentives for automakers to produce more electric vehicles.
"The issue is, people don't want to be forced to drive electric vehicles," Vance said. "And so if you don't have the demand for those cars, what you end up doing is destroying the American auto industry and all of the good jobs, union and nonunion."
The Biden administration has not imposed a ban on gas-powered vehicle or required consumers to purchase EVs. But it has put in place numerous incentives and restrictions on future tailpipe emissions that incentivized automakers to build and sell more EVs.
More:Fact check: Is there a Biden-Harris EV mandate?
More:Trump in Flint: China will 'dominate' EV race, Michigan an auto industry 'afterthought'
Sidestepping 2020 election
At Vance's first campaign stop at Visioneering, an aerospace industry supplier in Auburn Hills, the Ohio senator defended his refusal to acknowledge Trump lost the 2020 election while contending the upcoming vote on Nov. 5 would be more secure.
Vance appeared to share competing personal beliefs that it was unclear whom voters favored four years ago but that their vote would be safeguarded this fall.
“To all of you listening out there I believe that we are going to have the safest and most secure election in 2024 that we've had because the (Republican National Committee) is fighting for election integrity in a way that it, frankly, wasn’t four years ago," Vance said. "So I encourage folks to get out there and vote."
A day earlier, Vance debated Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, in New York. Three years into Democrat Joe Biden's term in the White House, Walz pressed Vance to say whether Trump had lost his 2020 race against Biden, but Vance declined to directly answer his opponent's question.
Trump has maintained unproven claims that fraud influenced the outcome of the last presidential election.
“The media is obsessed with talking about the election of four years ago,” Vance said Wednesday in Oakland County. “I am focused on the election of 33 days from now because I want to throw (Democratic Vice President) Kamala Harris out of office and get back to common sense economic policies.”
Moments later, Vance added that officials had "done a lot to make our elections more secure" for 2024.
“Never give into the despair that your voice doesn’t matter," Vance said.
Wednesday's visit marked the first appearance in Oakland County, Michigan's second largest county, by Vance or Trump of the fall campaign. Trump held a rally in Waterford Township in mid-February before Michigan's presidential primary.
Before Vance's visit on Wednesday, Vance Patrick, chairman of the Oakland County Republican Party, said his goal for the GOP is to do better in Oakland this November than four years ago.
"I am not going to say we're going to sweep Oakland County," Patrick said. "I am going to guarantee we're going to do a heck of a lot better than we did last time."
Vance heads west
Michigan, with 15 electoral votes, is one of seven battleground states that will decide whether Trump or Harris controls the White House for the next four years. Trump will be in Michigan for an event in Saginaw County on Thursday, and Harris will participate in a rally in Flint on Friday.
In line for Vance's second campaign rally of the day in Ottawa County was Lisa Winfield, 59, of Kent County, who was born in Canada before she immigrated to the U.S.
Winfield said she's deeply concerned about immigration and the country's border policies.
"It's not about people coming here. We're fine with people coming here, but I had to come here legally," Winfield said. "And I think there has to be a process to make sure these people are safe."
Winfield said she believes there are too many immigrants were being allowed entry in the country.
"One country cannot support resources for masses," she said. "There's just no way ... money, homes, food. We've been paying, and American citizens at work have been paying for all this."
Winfield also said that just because she plans to vote for Trump, "I don't approve of everything he says."
Richard Zang, 60, of Muskegon, said he plans to vote for Trump so America can "return to its core values." He also was attending the Vance rally in Ottawa County.
"I'm a straight Republican, completely. I'm just totally disconcerted over Democrats and their party, and we need to get back to the core values, traditions and time-honored traditions, and that's what President Trump is all about. And I love the man. I love what he stands and that's what this country needs."
He said he would like Vance to speak on the continuing hostilities in the Middle East, particularly recent attacks against Israel.
"President Trump presents that persona with the other world leaders," Zang said. "Like a 'don't cross me. If you cross me, they are going to be consequences. You're not going to walk all over me or us as a country.'"
'He didn't avoid the questions'
Patrick said he expects Trump or Vance to be in Michigan every week leading up to the Nov. 5 election, which is 34 days away.
Patrick said he thought Vance, who's 40 years old, had a polished performance at the debate with a strong closing statement on the cost of living and safety.
"JD is the absolute next successor," Patrick said of leading the Republican Party nationally.
Mark Petri, 40, of Howell, who was in the crowd for Vance's event in Michigan on Wednesday, gave a similarly positive review of Vance's presentation at the debate. Petri said he likes that Vance is from the Midwest and how he "stood his ground" against the debate's moderators.
"He answered the questions," Petri said. "He didn't avoid the questions. He stood firm in what he believed."
Yet, Democrats slammed Vance on Wednesday for not directly answering the question, posed by Walz during the debate, about whether Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden.
Trump has continued to make unproven claims that widespread fraud swayed the result of the 2020 race in Michigan and other states. At the debate, Vance said he's "focused on the future."
Walz labeled Vance's reply "a damning non-answer," and the Harris campaign said it had already turned the exchange into a digital advertisement Wednesday morning.
Biden won Michigan by 3 percentage points, 51%-48%, over Trump four years ago. A series of court rulings, bipartisan boards of canvassers and an investigation by a Republican-controlled Michigan state Senate committee upheld the result.
[email protected]
Freelance writer Sarah Leach reported from Wright Township in Ottawa County.
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[1] Url:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2024/10/02/jd-vance-gm-lansing-grand-river-assembly-cadillac-electric-vehicles-donald-trump-biden-harris/75489880007/
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