For two years, a rural town in the middle of Michigan has been embroiled in a civil war over plans by a Chinese-owned electric vehicle battery company to build a $2.4 billion factory.
On Tuesday, the local furor collided with presidential politics as the Trump campaign sought to leverage anti-China sentiment and concerns over the future of the electric vehicle industry in Michigan for political gain.
The fight over the E.V. battery facility has turned Green Charter Township, which is about 60 miles north of Grand Rapids, into the latest battleground over Chinese investment in the United States. Residents have expressed various concerns about the factory, including that it will be used by China to spy on Americans and will pollute the local environment.
The debate over the intentions of the Chinese company, Gotion, has led to angry town hall meetings, the ousting of the township’s board in an election last November and litigation over the future of the project.
Michigan is a pivotal swing state in the November election, and a New York Times/Siena poll this month showed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, leading former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, by 4 percentage points.
At a 150-acre horse farm owned by one of the most vocal “No Gotion” activists, Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, blamed Harris for Gotion’s arrival in Michigan. In 2022, Harris cast the deciding vote that enabled passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which created billions of dollars in new green energy subsidies and has lured foreign companies to the United States.
“Kamala Harris not only wants to allow the Chinese Communist Party to build factories on American soil, she wants to pay them to do it with our tax money,” Vance said on Tuesday afternoon. “Democrats are helping China to destroy and replace our auto industry from the inside out.”
The crowd of approximately 500 supporters of the Trump campaign, some of whom were wearing shirts accusing Chinese companies of using forced labor, erupted in boos when Vance mentioned Gotion.
The Treasury Department has estimated that only 2 percent of the clean energy investments made in the United States during the Biden administration have been made by Chinese companies and that American companies or US allies have made the rest.
During his brief tenure in the Senate, where he represents Ohio, Vance has been hawkish on China. He introduced a 2024 bill to combat Chinese currency manipulation and another piece of legislation that would ensure that inventions created by taxpayer-funded research cannot be manufactured in adversarial countries such as China.
Trump has also talked tough on China, imposing steep tariffs on its exports while president and moving to ban TikTok from US app stores over national security concerns. He has since equivocated on TikTok, saying that, if elected, he would “save TikTok.” And despite his anti-China views, as president Trump welcomed US investment by Taiwan’s Foxconn, which derives much of its revenue from its Chinese factories.
Vance’s decision to wade into the fight over Gotion came in the wake of another shift by Trump, who earlier this year indicated openness to foreign investment. During remarks in March and at his July convention speech, Trump suggested that he would welcome foreign companies, including those from China, building car factories in the US if they were staffed by American workers.
Gotion’s vice president of North American manufacturing, Chuck Thelen, embraced those remarks during a virtual town hall last month, suggesting that Trump was supportive of Chinese companies such as Gotion setting up shop in the US.
Last week, Trump changed his tenor on the issue. He said that he opposed the Gotion project, which has been supported by Michigan Democrats. They include Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has praised it as a win for the state. The battery factory is projected to create more than 2,000 jobs in the region.
“The Gotion plant would be very bad for the State and our Country. It would put Michiganders under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing,” Trump wrote on social media. “I AM 100% OPPOSED!”
Thelen said in a statement that he had not meant to suggest that Trump supported the Gotion facility but noted that the company had a good relationship with the Trump administration. He said that the company was moving forward with its plans.
Thelen said. “Trump wants the people of Michigan and our local economy to thrive from these types of jobs, and so do we.”
Gotion received $800 million in state subsidies, such as grants and tax exemptions, from Michigan’s strategic fund. The company could also be eligible to receive tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act.
The New York Times
