In Michigan, Vance says U.S. manufacturing can rebound despite tariff jitters and falling markets

Vice President JD Vance, center, speaks at a rally about "America's industrial resurgence," as he is flanked by his wife, Usha Vance, left, and Vantage Plastics President Paul Aultman, Friday, March 14, 2025, at Vantage Plastics in Bay City, Mich. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)

BAY CITY, Mich. — U.S. Vice President JD Vance toured a Michigan plastics manufacturing facility on Friday, promoting a promised Trump administration industrial renaissance nationwide even as jitters about rising tariffs and steep drops in consumer confidence and financial markets point to the opposite.

Vance was in Bay City, which was known in the 1800s for thriving sawmills and shipbuilding concerns that have long since closed. Speaking at Vantage Plastics, he vowed, “We started a great American comeback,” and said the Trump administration will “make it easier and more affordable to make things again in the United States.”

But he also repeatedly urged patience before the Trump White House’s economic policies take hold, noting, “This is not always easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight.”

Many Michigan businesses are especially concerned about a growing trade tiff with neighboring Canada that President Donald Trump has triggered with moves like increasing tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25% and that prompted swift retaliation from Ottawa and the European Union.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumer sentiment fell sharply, marking its third straight month of declines and leaving it down 22% from December 2024, when President Joe Biden was in office, according to a survey by the University of Michigan. The preliminary report released Friday shows that consumers’ expectations of annual inflation climbed to 3.9% from 3.5%, the largest monthly jump since 1993.

Financial markets have also tumbled, with the S&P 500 on Thursday closing more than 10% below its record for its first correction since 2023.

Trump has suggested that there will be some financial turbulence as his Republican administration embraces tariffs and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk leads efforts to fire tens of thousands of federal workers and shrink the size of the government. Vance repeated that message.

“I have to be honest with you. The road ahead of us is long,” the vice president said. “But, we are already — in just seven short weeks — starting to see early indications of the president’s vision becoming our shared American reality.”

Among the nearly 100 attendees at Friday’s event was Justin Crosby, who works for a construction company in nearby Midland. Asked what he hoped to hear from Vance, Crosby had a simple answer: “Hope.”

The 35-year-old supported Trump in last fall’s election and admitted that keeping up with the first few months of his presidency has been “hard.” Still, Crosby remains confident the president will help lower costs, saying, “It takes a long time to unravel all the craziness that’s happened over the last four years.”

On the impact of tariffs on construction, Crosby said trade companies are struggling because “materials are expensive, everything’s expensive.”

“We feel it in construction,” he added. “Hopefully, this summer leads to better pay.”

Vance nonetheless defended higher tariffs.

“If you want to be rewarded, build in America. If you want to be penalized, build outside of America,” Vance said, prompting chants of “USA! USA!” “It’s as simple as that.”

Frank Wyson, a worker at Vantage Plastics who stood onstage near Vance, said he wasn’t concerned about the tariffs' potential impact on Michigan.

“We’ve done give and give and give, to the point where we’re starting to crumble,” Wyson said. “So, therefore, it’s time for the surrounding countries that’s gotten from us to give back to us.”

Paul Aultman, Vantage’s CEO and founder, said the Vance event was focused on economics, not politics.

“Regardless of which side you’re on, you can’t disagree with promoting more high-paying jobs for people,” he said.

There were about 50 protesters flanking the entrance to the Vantage facility, holding signs on a number of topics, including criticizing Trump and Vance, as well as Musk’s government-slashing efforts, and voicing support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Vance noted the protesters and the timing of his speech — around noon on a weekday — before joking, “Don’t you all have jobs?”

“We want those people to get off the streets and back to work,” the vice president said.

He made the trip with Kelly Loeffler, administrator for the Small Business Administration and a Republican former senator from Georgia. Vance’s Michigan stop also came a day after the state’s governor, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, met behind closed doors with Trump in Washington to discuss jobs and tariffs. Whitmer called the meeting “productive.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, was at the White House on Friday, too. That prompted Vance to scoff about blue-state governors coming “to the Oval Office and begging for economic development.”

Vance, who was a senator from neighboring Ohio before being elected vice president, promised that more Midwestern travel was in his future. “This is not going to be my last stop in Michigan, by any means,” he said.

“If we do not protect our nation’s manufacturers, we lose a fundamental part of who we are as a people. Making things, building things, working with our hands is America’s heritage,” Vance said. “When we lose the ability to make our own stuff, we abandon a way of life.”

___

Joey Cappelletti And Will Weissert, The Associated Press

Weissert reported from Washington.