Washington, D.C. – President Donald Trump flew to Michigan Thursday, January 20th, 2020, where he joined workers to celebrate the signing of his new U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) and the end of NAFTA.
Dana Incorporated, where the President spoke, perfectly captures America’s blue-collar spirit. Based near Detroit, the company employs more than 1,500 workers that help assemble some of the toughest vehicles in the world. Dana Inc., for example, helped invent the iconic U.S. Army Jeep in 1941.
This factory is the site of “116 years of brilliant American craftsmanship,” President Trump said. It’s businesses like Dana Inc. that will benefit tremendously from USMCA.
“We just ended a nightmare known as NAFTA. They took our jobs for a long time,” the President said. USMCA is the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law, he added.
All told, some 60,000 U.S. plants and factories closed up shop in the 16 years before President Trump’s election. For years, politician after politician promised to fix NAFTA—only to reverse course once they got into office. While they did nothing, an astonishing one-quarter of our country’s manufacturing jobs moved elsewhere.
Michigan knows that story all too well. Once the global hub for the auto industry, the state lost nearly half those jobs under NAFTA, and roughly 200,000 manufacturing jobs in total. With USMCA, old loopholes that pushed car-part manufacturing overseas are gone: Now, at least 75 percent of every vehicle must be made in North America.
Over the next five years alone, USMCA is projected to boost purchases of U.S.-made auto parts by $23 billion annually while supporting $34 billion in new automotive manufacturing investments. That will help create 100,000 new jobs in this industry alone.
The bottom line, says President Trump: “We are bringing your jobs back home to America—and back home to Michigan.”
THE FACTS: How ending NAFTA delivers a historic win for American workers
