Ohio -- Standing alongside their colleagues from Michigan, whose districts are also being impacted, Representatives Marcy Kaptur (D-OH09) and Tim Ryan (D-OH13) called it a ‘brutal week’ after General Motors hit northern Ohio with a ‘sledgehammer.’
“There’s a level of frustration now in the industrial Midwest that we’ve been ignored,” Ryan said.
“We are talking about tens of thousands of people impacted across our region,” Kaptur added.
The Lordstown plant, where the Chevy Cruze is assembled, is in Ryan’s 13th congressional district.
He said he spoke with GM CEO Mary Barra by phone Thursday morning, urging her to bring a new product to the Mahoning Valley.
And he spoke with Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday, telling Spectrum Washington reporter Taylor Popielarz that he wanted to look Pence in the eye and explain the federal government needs to step in.
“To his credit, he immediately had his staff come up and meet with my staff,” Ryan said.
It’s not yet clear if GM is considering bringing a new product to Lordstown, so Ryan and Kaptur — who is the co-chair of the House Auto Caucus — are asking President Trump to come visit the plant.
“President Trump was able to find Ohio before,” Kaptur said. “He was able to find Michigan before, and Wisconsin and Indiana — all these regions that supply General Motors. He can come back now and meet with us and the workers who are bearing the brunt of these closures.”
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) spoke with the president by phone on Wednesday night, pushing the president to support his American Cars, American Jobs act.
“If you’re producing in Lordstown, you pay a 21 percent tax rate,” Brown said in an interview with CNN. “If you move to Mexico, you pay a 10.5 percent tax rate. And I asked the president to get rid of that tax break that encourages jobs to move overseas. He wasn’t really aware of that, but he said he would help.”
Trump tweeted this week that he might put new tariffs on cars made outside of the U.S. and that he’s considering cutting all of GM’s subsidies.
Ryan and Kaptur repeatedly said Thursday that the economy has to be reset to focus on workers. So would Trump’s suggestions be enough?
“My fear is he fires off a couple tweets and calls it a day,” Ryan said.
“It isn’t enough,” Kaptur said. “And if our trade agreements don’t change, if we don’t equalize the VAT [Value Added Tax,] if we don’t open closed markets, that kind of approach is not going to be successful.”
In a series of his own tweets Wednesday night, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) said GM’s decision to close down the Lordstown plant “has absolutely nothing to do with the new tax law.”