Former President Donald Trump eschewed the Republican presidential primary debate Wednesday night to tell United Auto Workers that they would soon be made redundant by electric vehicles.
At a rally in Michigan attended by several hundred workers, Trump said the particulars of the negotiations with the big three automakers don’t really matter and that the industry would take significant losses in the coming years either way.
"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," Trump said at Drake Enterprises, a non-union auto parts supplier.
The UAW is striking Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) and Stellantis NV (NYSE:STLA, EPA:STLA) simultaneously, calling for a 40% pay increase, a shorter work week and the elimination of wage tiers, among other asks. Union president Shawn Fain is expected to name additional auto plants that will join the targeted strike on Friday.
On Tuesday, President Biden joined the United Auto Workers picket line and expressed his support for a 40% wage increase.
While Trump was discouraging union members, Republicans at the debate called him “missing in action.” At one point, in a bizarre, direct-to-camera monologue, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said people would start calling the former president, “Donald Duck.”
In a statement Wednesday evening, the Biden campaign instead opted for the phrase “billionaire charlatan.”
"Donald Trump is lying about President Biden's agenda to distract from his failed track record of trickle-down tax cuts, closed factories, and jobs outsourced to China," the statement read.
The UAW has not endorsed Biden in 2024 as it did in 2020, citing concerns over a transition to electric vehicles in the US. When Biden traveled to Michigan, he reportedly spoke with Fain on the topic.
Notably, analysts at Wedbush have argued that if the automakers agreed to the union’s demands, it would be an enormous headwind to their EV sales.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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