‘I don’t think you’re picketing for the right thing,’ the GOP front-runner for 2024 said.
DETROIT—Former President Donald Trump addressed blue-collar workers, including dozens of current and former members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in Detroit on Sept. 27.
The former president spoke at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township, a northern suburb of Detroit. His appearance in Michigan comes amid a strike by the UAW that has reached two weeks. Drake Enterprises is unaffiliated with the UAW.
Speaking on policy, President Trump contrasted himself with President Joe Biden, arguing that his competitor is a proponent of “ultra-left-wing globalism” and that his policies would end in U.S. auto jobs being shipped to China, Mexico, and other foreign nations.
“I want a future that protects American labor, not foreign labor,” President Trump said near the top of his remarks.
Citing the ongoing strikes, he argued that President Biden’s push to mandate electric vehicles (EV) would lead to U.S. automakers, and American jobs, being pushed out of the market.
Specifically, he referenced a proposed standard by the Environmental Protection Agency that would require the majority of new cars on the market to be electric within 10 years—even as the United States currently doesn’t have the infrastructure to support such a system.
President Trump said Americans should instead be given a choice and that U.S. automakers should be allowed to stick with the business they know.
“You’re all on picket lines and everything, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what you get because in two years, you’re all going to be out of business,” he said. “Crooked Joe is siding with the left-wing crazies who will destroy automobile manufacturing, and will destroy our country itself.”
President Trump pointed to his record on auto manufacturing while in office, saying that he had “saved” it.
By Joseph Lord and Emel Akan
