Donald J. Trump, who saw an opening with organized workers, Thursday filed an appeal for an approval of the United Auto Workers for his bid for the White House, saying only his return as president can save the auto industry from President Biden’s “ridiculous Green New Deal crusade.”
Mr. Trump’s apocalyptic view of the state of the US auto industry is at odds with the reality of an auto industry that has been steadily gaining jobs over the past three years. But there has been friction between the White House and the new leadership of the old-fashioned industrial auto union.
The United Auto Workers, which has a reputation for supporting Democratic candidates for president, including Mr. Biden, is angry at the Biden administration for pumping taxpayers’ money into non-union suppliers of electric vehicles, and has withheld its approval even as most unions have rushed to support Mr. Biden’s re-election. New UAW president Shawn Fain met with Mr Biden at the White House on Wednesday as contract talks with the Big Three automakers heated up over suppliers of electric car parts.
In a video on Thursday, Mr Trump predicted the demise of US auto production and the “slaughter” of 117,000 auto manufacturing jobs. “I hope United Auto Workers listens to this because I think you better support Trump,” he said. He explicitly warned that Mr Biden’s policies would cost jobs in the key swing state of Michigan, as well as the more reliable Republican states of Ohio and Indiana.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the auto industry has been steadily gaining jobs since Trump’s departure. Employment at automakers and their component suppliers was 1,071,600 in June, an increase of 129,000 since December 2020, the last full month of Mr. Trump’s presidency.
Mr. Trump’s claim that electric vehicles are piling up unsold in car lots contradicts the industry’s own view of its inventory.
“We would argue that demand for traditional vehicles as well as for electric vehicles is strong,” said Matt Blunt, a former Republican governor of Missouri who is now president of the American Automotive Policy Council, Washington’s domestic auto industry trade association. “This is a time of dramatic transition, but US industry is well positioned.”
But the tension between the UAW and the Biden administration is real. Fewer workers are needed to assemble an electric vehicle than a vehicle with an internal combustion engine. That has made organizing parts suppliers, especially battery manufacturers, a necessity for the union’s rebellious new leadership.
Still, much of the new battery investment, driven in part by Mr. Biden’s climate change policies and infrastructure bill, is ending up in the union-resistant Southeast, particularly Georgia, a vital battleground state in the 2024 election. That state has introduced more than 40 electric-vehicle projects since 2020, promising $22.7 billion in investments and the creation of 28,400 jobs.
Mr Biden was at the Philadelphia shipyard on Thursday, speaking of new rules tied to his climate change bill, designed to help union apprentice programs lead workers without a college degree into the middle class.
“A lot of my friends in organized labor know that when I think about climate, I think about jobs,” he said. “I think union jobs.”
But Mr. Trump, looking beyond the Republican primaries to a rematch with Mr. Biden, continues to push for the vote of union workers, if not their leaders.
