GREEN TOWNSHIP, MI – Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance blasted a planned $2.36 billion battery parts plant in mid-Michigan for its ties to China, speaking near the factory’s site in a campaign rally on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
Vance, the running mate of former President Donald Trump, was joined by Michigan GOP lawmakers at a farm near Big Rapids where they stirred up criticism linking Chinese battery maker Gotion Inc. to the Chinese Communist Party, calling the Gotion plant “a threat to America’s national security.”
The vice presidential candidate claimed Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, have funded Chinese companies like Gotion that undercut Michigan’s auto industry. Gotion plans to make components for electric vehicle batteries in Green Township on the outskirts of Big Rapids, which is about an hour north of Grand Rapids.
“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 told a crowd of nearly 2,000 attendees at Majestic Friesians Horse Farms.
Vance was joined on stage by Republican lawmakers including former gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, former U.S. Rep Mike Rogers, who is running for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat this fall, and Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra.
Dixon echoed concerns about the Gotion plant, questioning the safety standards of the battery parts factory and its affect on Michigan’s waterways.
“We don’t even know exactly what chemicals they’re using, but we do know that they’ll be taking more than 700,000 gallons of our water every single day,” she said. “My concern with Gotion is not only, where does it come from, but where does it go after it’s contaminated?
“The environmental impact could be catastrophic, and it’s coming from the Chinese Communist Party.”
Trump has recently expressed opposition to the Gotion plant, calling the plant bad for Michigan workers and the auto industry.
“A few weeks ago, the Chinese Electric Vehicle battery company that Michigan Democrats support, Gotion, claimed that I support its EV battery plant planned for Northern Michigan,” he wrote on Truth Social. “That is not true. 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. I AM 100% OPPOSED!”
The Harris campaign, however, told MLive that Trump oversaw the loss of over 280,000 jobs in Michigan during his presidency, 30,000 of which were in manufacturing. The Harris campaign said Harris wants to keep Michigan at the forefront of car manufacturing by ensuring union auto jobs end up in America. According to the Harris campaign, Trump’s policies like ending tax credits for electric vehicles will “cede the future of the automobile industry to China.”
The Gotion project has been met with opposition from many Green Township residents. Last fall, voters in Mecosta County ousted the township board over its support of the controversial electric vehicle battery plant. Some attendees at the rally Tuesday wore buttons and carried signs reading “No to Gotion.”
RELATED: Michigan township board recalled for backing Gotion battery plant
Lori Brock, the owner of Friesian Majestic Horse, said the Gotion battery plant has turned Green Township from a “quiet and peaceful place to live” to a “political battleground.”
“It all changed the day that the Communist Party showed up in our town with the Gotion battery plant,” she told the crowd on Tuesday.
Brock urged attendees to support the Trump-Vance ticket, which she said will “will stop the sellout of our national security, our environment, and protect our way of life.”
“President Trump and Sen. Vance know that the Chinese Communist Party is the biggest national security threat that our country has faced in decades, and the fact that our governor is handing over millions of our tax dollars to a company controlled by these same people who fly spy balloons over our military baseless is reckless and absurd,” she said.
In addition to blasting the Gotion project, Vance used Tuesday’s campaign rally to criticize the current U.S. economic conditions, including high gas prices, housing costs and grocery prices.
Vance called Harris “the candidate of American decline,” blaming the vice president for the high cost of living that many Americans are facing.
“On her watch, gas prices are up 50%,” he said. “Housing costs have doubled. You talk to a young person today, young people cannot afford to buy a home in their own country. We’re turning a generation of 20- and 30-year-olds into permanent debtors. Donald Trump and I believe young people ought to own a stake in their own country, be able to build a life and start a family. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
Vance contrasted Harris’s policies with Trump’s proposed actions if reelected as president, including closing the southern border, cutting taxes for American workers and businesses, and raising tariffs on companies that are shipping jobs overseas.
Tuesday was the fourth time Vance has campaigned in Michigan since he was announced as Trump’s running mate on July 15.
His first stop was in Grand Rapids that month for a rally with Trump at Van Andel Arena. Vance returned to Michigan without Trump three weeks later for remarks outside a police station in Macomb County.
RELATED: ‘I took a bullet for democracy,’ Trump tells Michigan crowd week after deadly rally
Most recently, Vance visited rural Kent County on Aug. 14 where he blamed Harris for higher food and energy prices, jobs lost to immigrants and foreign countries, and more crime and overdoses.
Harris has also visited the key battleground state of Michigan in recent weeks, hitting the Kalamazoo area on July 17 to talk up reproductive rights, criticize political violence, and blast Vance as Trump’s running mate.
Michigan has been seen as a key state for both campaigns to win to secure the presidency this fall. The latest polling averages as of Aug. 27 show Harris at a 3% lead over Trump in the state, with Harris at 49% and Trump at 46%, according to the New York Times.
Nearly 2,000 people attended Vance’s speech, which lasted just under 25 minutes, despite high temperatures surpassing 90 degrees across Michigan on Tuesday.
