DCCC - Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

10/03/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/03/2024 14:37

Tom Barrett Silent as JD Vance Threatens Hundreds of Auto Industry Jobs In Mid-Michigan

Yesterday, JD Vance refused to commit to following through with a $500M federal grant to save jobs at the GM Lansing Grand River Assembly.

So far, Tom Barrett has chosen to remain silent - a tacit endorsement of Vance's plan to devastate Mid-Michigan and cause at least 650 workers to instantly lose their jobs.

Barrett has repeatedly threatened job growth in Michigan. In the state legislature, Barrett voted five times to block bipartisan efforts to support 5,000 auto manufacturing jobs and bring a new EV battery plant to Michigan's 7th Congressional District. If Barrett had gotten his way, General Motors would have taken its $7 billion investment and thousands of jobs out of state or overseas to places like China.

DCCC Spokesperson Aidan Johnson:
"Tom Barrett is silent while the leaders he endorsed brag about a plan that threatens Michigan's auto industry. Michiganders deserve a leader who will protect their livelihoods, not someone who would happily see these jobs sent overseas to places like China."

  • 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.

  • 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.