Excerpts from Donald Trump’s Speech to Autoworkers, UAW members and other industrial workers, September 27, 2023 in Clinton Township, MI.

Before I stepped into the political arena seven years ago, I spent my whole life working alongside of Americans just like you, spent a lot of time with you.... Now I put everything on the line to fight for you. I’ve risked it all to defend the working class from the corrupt political class that has spent decades sucking the life, wealth, and blood out of this country...

I’m here tonight to lay out a vision for a revival of economic nationalism and our automobile manufacturing lifeblood, which they’re sucking out of our country. I want a future that protects American labor, not foreign labor, a future that puts American dreams over foreign profits, and a future that raises American wages, that strengthens American industry, that builds national pride, and that defends this country’s dignity, not squanders it all to build up foreign countries that hate us...

Under crooked Joe Biden, you have none of this. You have none of the things we want. Instead of economic nationalism, you have ultra left-wing globalism. They hate our country, and the workers of America are getting, to put it very nicely, screwed. You’re getting screwed...

I don’t get one thing. I don’t get why Ford and GM, why these car makers aren’t fighting to make cars that are going to sell, to make cars that are going to be able to go long distances. They immediately give up. I see it with the oil companies, too. They’re promoting windmills, which don’t work, by the way. They don’t work. They want windmills all over the place. It’s like they’re told what to do, and they go against their industry. They’re either stupid or they’re gutless. But why do they concede so fast?

My pledge to every auto maker is this. A vote for President Trump means the future of the automobile will be made in America where it should be. Made in America. It will be fueled by American energy. It will be sourced by American suppliers. It will be sculpted from American iron, aluminum, and steel, and it will be built by highly skilled American hands and high-wage American labor. That’s what’s going to happen...

Hopefully, your leaders at United Auto Workers will endorse Donald Trump because standard history for years and decades and years and years and years, they always endorse a Democrat. It’s almost like an automatic reflex. There’s no reason for it, but it’s a habit. It’s a bad habit. It hasn’t worked because, look, you’ve lost 38% of your industry over the period of 25 years. Much of it has gone to Mexico...  

After NAFTA, the United States lost nearly four million manufacturing jobs and almost one in three auto jobs. Joe Biden voted for that. He gave you that. Nearly a quarter of a million jobs were destroyed here in Michigan alone, including 40% of all auto jobs. Think of that. In fact, I had to check this number because it’s inconceivable, you would think. 60,000 factories closed and went overseas. Can you imagine 60,000? ...

When I came into office, the auto industry was on its knees, gasping its last breaths after eight long years of Obama and Biden. But you finally got a president who stood up to the ... You got to understand, I stood up to people that hate you. They hate you or they may hate our country... I stood up for the auto workers and stood up for the great state of Michigan like nobody’s ever stood up before. Just as I promised, I withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership my very first week...

Biden’s job killing EV mandate has dictated that nearly 70% of all cars sold in the United States must be fully electric less than 10 years from now. Do you believe that? These are built specifically for people that want to take very short trips, okay? Hop in the car, “Darling, let’s drive down to the store and let’s drive back... ”

They say the happiest day when you buy an electric car is the first 10 minutes you’re driving it and then after that, panic sets in because you’re worried, “Where the hell am I going to get a charge to keep this thing going?” Now, panic... Despite colossal government subsidies Ford alone is projecting to lose an astonishing $4.5 billion on electric vehicles. Why are they agreeing to this? This is what I don’t understand...Why are they not fighting and saying, “It doesn’t work.”? ...

And yes, it’s true, today’s radical Democrat party wants to legalize drugs, shoplifting, and sexual mutilation of your children. But they want to allow your gas-powered Suburban, Silverado, and Ford F-150 to die. Under a Trump administration, gasoline engines will be allowed, and sex changes for children will be banned. Is that okay? ...

By most estimates, under Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, 40% of all US auto jobs will disappear. Think of this: In one or two years. Think one or two years, that’s what you have to be talking about, not you’re going to get X dollars an hour. It doesn’t matter what the hell you’re getting an hour. Do me a favor, just get your union guys, your leaders to endorse me and I’ll take care of the rest. Because in looking over the statistics now, they’re saying, but the real number will be 100%, because under Biden’s mandate, the entire car industry will be packed up and shipped to China, which controls over 80% of the supply chain for electric vehicle batteries. They control the whole thing. So  ... close to a hundred percent of the business will be gone...

To the striking workers, I support you in your goal of fair wages and greater stability, and I truly hope you get a fair deal for yourselves and your families. But if your union leaders will not demand that crooked Joe repeal his electric vehicle mandate immediately, then it doesn’t matter what hourly wage you get, it just doesn’t make a damn bit of difference because in two to three years, you will not have one job in this state. And you’ve seen it happen before.

You’ve seen what happened where massive percentages of your industry went to other countries like Mexico, like China, like South Korea, like Japan. In other words, your current negotiations don’t mean as much as you think…

So, give me four more years and I will give you the end to this horrible globalism that’s killing our country. I’ll give you the return of the United States of America as the greatest and strongest industrial nation in the history of the world. Together we will dismantle the corrupt power structure that has feasted on the suffering of the American auto worker and the workers of any kind, not just auto workers, workers of any kind.

We will cast from power, the financial forces that have turned American cities into ghost towns to build skyscrapers in Beijing, China. We will wield every lever of government to defend you and to hold accountable those who have profited from the betrayal and suffering of the American factory worker...

As your 47th President of the United States, I will be your protector, I will be your advocate, and I will be your greatest champion, the greatest champion that you’ve ever had. On day one, I will terminate Joe Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, and I will cancel every job-killing regulation that is crushing American auto workers. I will unleash a thing called American Energy, stop the ban on the internal combustion engine and we will drill, baby, drill and it will make zero environmental difference... In fact, if anything, it’s probably cleaner than what they’re doing. But it’ll save your family a yearly fortune and give you a much better way of life. You’re losing your way of life. I will then go to every foreign country where we’re paying billions and billions of dollars for their military defense as I was doing before and tell them that if they do not massively increase their purchases of Ford, Chevys, GMs, and Jeeps, our troops are packing up and we’re coming home...

Having a vibrant car industry is far more important than almost anything we can do for a very important thing called national security. We need a rebirth of loyalty in this country. To that end, we will bring back a very beautiful word, protection, financial protection. You’re going to be protected financially while we still have the power to do it. There’s a run on our currency. They want to take away our currency standard. If that happens, that’s the worst thing to happen maybe in our country’s history, it’ll put us in a much different position.  Countries are leaving our standard... In reality, protectionism never truly went out of fashion. Our corrupt politicians just stopped protecting American jobs and workers, and they started protecting the jobs and workers in China and Mexico, Germany, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Under the Trump presidency, patriotic protectionism will be the new American way. We want to be protected. That’s what we have our government for. We want protection in many ways, and we’re going to stop the crime in our cities and we’re going to stop the crime in our country, and we’re not going to be nice about it... That means protecting our workers, protecting our wages, protecting our jobs, protecting our industries, protecting our communities, and protecting our great, something you don’t hear about very much anymore, a great American Dream. We had an American Dream. You don’t hear about that with this guy. This guy walks up yesterday, looks like he’s going to fall over standing in front of some people. Looks like he’s going to fall over. This is not a leader...

Upon taking office, I will impose an across-the-board tariff on foreign made goods. I will also pass the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act. That means that if China or any other country makes us pay a 100 or 200 or 300% tariff or tax, we will make them pay a reciprocal tariff of 100, 200 or 300%. What could be more fair, right?  ... I will revoke China’s most favored nation...” Well, we’re a developing nation, too. When you look at our cities, we’re developing. We’re developing in the wrong way.  ... Foreign auto parts manufacturing will be among our first targets. We’re going to bring it home from China and other foreign countries on a very grand scale...

But my message to you tonight is that Michigan’s abuse under Joe Biden will end and I will take you to new heights, never dreamed of before, never even dreamed of. The Wall Street predators, the Chinese cheaters and the corrupt politicians have hurt you. I will make you better... For years, foreign nations have looted and plundered your hopes, your dreams, and your heritage. And now they’re going to pay for what they have stolen and what they have done to you, my friends, we’re going to do it together...The gleaming new buildings and roaring production lines will be built in Lansing and Flint and Sterling Heights and Grand Rapids and Pontiac, Dearborn and Detroit...

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been preparing my entire life for this battle. We did such a great job four years ago, we were unfairly interrupted. Let’s be nice about it. We were very unfairly interrupted. But in many ways this is better because we’ve seen what a bad job, they have shown us what a horrible job they do, and we’ll be able to do things that nobody would’ve thought possible and people won’t be complaining even a little bit because between crime and all of the jobs that have been stolen from us and all of the factories that have been closing, all of the bad things that have been happening with Afghanistan and with Ukraine and with everything, people will say, “Wow, we want these changes to be made. We want these changes to be made very, very quickly.”  ...

And I promise you this with me as your president, our opponents will lose and our American workers will be the biggest winner of them all. So, with your help and with your vote, we will expel the globalists from our government. We will evict crooked Joe Biden from the White House. We will put America and our workers first, we’re going to put them first, and we will do something that’s very, very special, that I’ve been saying for a long time. And we had it going at a level that nobody ever thought possible. We will make America great again. So, thank you. God bless you, Michigan, and God bless you auto workers. And God bless America. God bless everybody in this room. Thank you all very much.