Global Courant
Former US President Donald Trump has traveled to Michigan to appear in court against striking auto workers, just one day after President Joe Biden walked the picket line in Detroit to show support for their union.
The back-to-back visits underline the importance of the so-called Rust Belt battlegrounds in the 2024 presidential election, which will be a second showdown between Biden and Trump.
Ahead of his visit on Wednesday, Trump expressed a desire to “save” auto workers in the Rust Belt, a historic hub for American manufacturing that stretches from the Midwest to the Northeast.
‘I’m going to Michigan now. I love and will save the auto workers. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
His prime-time speech at an auto parts supplier in Detroit will roughly coincide with the second Republican presidential debate, scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern Time (01 a.m. GMT Thursday) in California.
It will be the second time Trump has chosen to skip a televised primary debate during the 2024 race, a decision he attributes to his already commanding lead among Republican voters.
Voters in Michigan and other Rust Belt states are seen as key to victory for both Biden and Trump, if he indeed becomes the Republican Party’s nominee in the November 2024 elections.
In 2016, Trump’s surprise attack on Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – all considered part of the Rust Belt – won him the presidency over his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
His victories in those states were seen as a response to residents’ disillusionment who had seen industries scale back their presence — or disappear — in recent decades. The decline in industrial production was accompanied by the declining influence of reliable unions with democratic votes.
Biden, meanwhile, reclaimed Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for Democrats in the 2020 presidential race, campaigning on his staunch support for organized labor and his roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
As he runs for re-election in 2024, Biden returned to Michigan on Tuesday, becoming the first sitting US president in recent history to join striking workers on a picket line.
Flanked by United Auto Workers (UAW) leaders at an auto factory west of Detroit, Biden used a megaphone to call for a “significant pay increase” for workers.
The UAW launched its partial, coordinated strike earlier this month in an effort for wage increases, shorter hours and better pension benefits. Workers in 20 states have since quit their jobs as part of the strike.
Trump, meanwhile, has tried to portray Biden’s policies – and persistently high inflation in the US – as harmful to workers.
He took particular advantage of Biden’s support for electric vehicles, saying an industry shift to lower-emissions vehicles would undermine segments of the traditional auto industry.
“Joe Biden’s draconian and indefensible mandate on electric vehicles will destroy America’s auto industry and cost countless thousands of auto workers their jobs,” Trump said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Biden administration has maintained that the shift to electric vehicles will create good-paying union jobs, and his administration has released billions in grants and loans to support the transition. Still, the issue remains divisive among autoworkers.
On Wednesday, Trump will speak at 8:15 p.m. Eastern (12:15 a.m. GMT Thursday) at Drake Enterprises, a nonunion auto parts supplier in Michigan’s Clinton Township that makes auto parts and heavy-duty truck parts for semi-trucks.
The company’s president, Nathan Stempel, has said the company would be hurt by a shift to electric vehicles.
Several hundred current and former UAW members, as well as members of plumbers and pipefitters unions, are expected to attend the speech.
Although the UAW has not yet endorsed Biden for 2024, the union previously supported his campaign for 2020. UAW President Shawn Fain spoke alongside the president on Tuesday.
He remains highly critical of Trump, Biden’s rival in the 2020 race.
“I don’t think he cares about working-class people,” Fain said when asked about Trump’s upcoming visit. “I think he cares about the billionaire class, about corporate interests. I think he’s just trying to pander to people and say what they want to hear, and that’s a shame.”
The UAW represents an important union voting bloc. It has approximately 400,000 active members and more than 580,000 retired members in the US and Canada.
