Trump slams economic conditions in Wisconsin city for lack of job promises By Reuters

Author: Gram Slattery

RACINE, Wis. (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sought to present himself as the best candidate for the U.S. economy at a rally in Racine, Wisconsin, on Tuesday. Major failure.

The former president also pledged to quickly reverse a plan announced today by Democratic President Joe Biden to provide hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. illegally with a path to citizenship.

“If I get re-elected, Joe Biden’s amnesty plan will be torn up and scrapped,” Trump said of the immigration order that applies to certain spouses and some children of U.S. citizens.

President Trump was in the mainly working-class lakeside city of Racine to celebrate an expected $10 billion investment by Taiwanese technology group Foxconn in 2018. During his 2017-2021 term, President Trump touted the facility, designed for TV production, as an example of how his “America First” policies have revitalized manufacturing.

However, while Foxconn initially expected to create 13,000 new jobs at the plant, it now expects to create only about 1,500 jobs. The empty fields west of downtown Racine, connected by empty roads, serve as a local symbol of unfulfilled promise.

The company, which did not respond to a request for comment, previously said it had changed its plans due to an expected decline in demand for the plant’s products.

Trump did not comment on Foxconn Tuesday. Instead, he focused on high inflation and mortgage rates that have hurt Biden’s popularity, including in politically competitive states like Wisconsin.

“Nobody can buy a house anymore. The American dream is dead,” Trump told a crowd gathered on the shores of Lake Michigan.

But Foxconn’s disappointing debut has opened up lines of attack for local and national Democrats who say Trump has failed to keep his economic promises. They’re hoping their message resonates in Wisconsin, one of a handful of states expected to decide the outcome of the Nov. 5 election.

Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said, “I’m not surprised he doesn’t want to talk about his fake Foxconn scheme or the fact that Wisconsin lost tens of thousands of jobs during his failed presidency.”

Trump leads Biden by 0.2 percentage points in Wisconsin after losing the state in 2020, with the two candidates competing for every vote, according to an average of polls maintained by the polling website FiveThirtyEight. .

Biden last month touted construction of a $3.3 billion Microsoft (NASDAQ:) data center in Racine at the location where Foxconn had planned to build part of its manufacturing campus.

“Foxconn turned out to be a fraud right away,” Biden told supporters at Gateway Technical College’s Sturtevant campus.

Still, Trump has a solid base of local support, many voters are willing to pass on Foxconn, and some officials have said publicly they are glad the jobs will be created.

Unemployed Anthony Eckman, 28, said he was disappointed when the warehouse position he had planned to apply for at Foxconn did not materialize. But he said his personal finances have worsened under Biden and he will likely vote for Trump this year after sitting out his last election.

“I wish we had a better candidate this year, but Biden has shown no signs of improving this country,” Eckman said. “I think I’m going to vote for Trump this year.”

The Trump campaign criticized Biden in a statement for failing to control inflation and raise wages.

“Joe Biden’s policies have led to rising prices for American families, falling wages and stagnant manufacturing, leading to the lowest approval for Biden across Wisconsin,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.

oppression of immigrants

Trump’s speech came hours after Biden announced new efforts to provide a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to the United States who are married to American citizens.

Biden’s new program will be open to about 500,000 spouses who have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years as of June 17, officials said Tuesday. About 50,000 children under age 21 with U.S. citizen parents are also eligible.

At his rally, Trump again linked illegal immigrants to violent crime, although there is no evidence that illegal immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than American citizens.

Racine County is just south of Milwaukee and is considered politically competitive even by Wisconsin standards. Trump beat the Democratic candidate by about 4 percentage points in both 2016 and 2020, and former Democratic President Barack Obama barely won in 2008 and 2012.

Last week, during a meeting with Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives, President Trump called Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention will be held next month, a “horrible city.”

His campaign said he was referring to alleged violent crime and election security issues in the city. On Tuesday, Trump tried to dispel any notion that he hates Wisconsin’s largest city.

“I love Milwaukee!” Trump said this at the beginning of his speech. “These lying people say, ‘Oh, he doesn’t like Milwaukee.’” “I love Milwaukee.”