OPINION:
Kamala Harris’ “woke,” inflationary policies are gutting American manufacturing and energy production. Much of this devastation is happening in battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Take Michigan: Under the Democratic nominee’s relentless push for Green New Deal policies, the state’s automakers are again being driven offshore. Michigan’s economy is collapsing under the weight of Ms. Harris’ electric vehicle mandates.
Ford, for example, had to pause construction on its $3.5 billion EV battery plant in Marshall, Michigan, throwing the future of 2,500 potential jobs into question. Smaller companies such as Dawson Manufacturing in Benton Harbor have already closed.
Memo to Ms. Harris: EV manufacturing requires 40% fewer workers than making cars with traditional internal-combustion engines — jobs that will never return.
What about Pennsylvania? The Keystone State’s energy sector — the fourth-largest in America — is likewise under siege.
Ms. Harris’ radical environmentalism is choking the fracking industry that had made Pennsylvania a leader in natural gas production.
Today, drilling for new gas wells is at historic lows. Oil production declined by 187,000 barrels per month before the pandemic. Employment has dropped by 30%.
Pennsylvania’s oil services companies such as NexTier Completion Solutions have shut down. NexTier played a significant role in fracking and energy services.
This is not a blip — it’s a direct result of the Biden-Harris energy policies that are suffocating Pennsylvania’s economy. Instead of supporting American energy, Ms. Harris is pushing us into the arms of foreign oil dictatorships.
Then, there’s North Carolina. Its furniture industry, once the state’s pride, is crumbling under the weight of inflation and foreign competition.
Most destructively, the administration’s inflationary policies have driven up the cost of raw materials and operational expenses, leaving companies no choice but to close. Take Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. It closed its North Carolina plants in August 2023, eliminating over 1,100 jobs overnight.
United Furniture Industries closed its plants in High Point and Winston-Salem, dealing another blow to North Carolina workers. These shutdowns are the inevitable result of Ms. Harris’ inflationary economic policies and her globalist refusal to protect American industries from unfair foreign competition.
Ms. Harris doesn’t tell you that her tie-breaking votes on the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act have been a major contributor to the inflation spilling over into North Carolina’s furniture industry.
Georgia isn’t faring any better under Ms. Harris. The Peach State’s textile industry, one of the country’s largest, is being decimated by foreign competition — enabled by the refusal of the Biden-Harris administration to close the de minimis loophole.
This de minimis loophole allows goods such as electronics, furniture and textiles valued under $800 to flood into the U.S. tariff-free. Foreign countries — especially China — are exploiting de minimis, and Georgia’s textile workers are paying the price.
Take 1888 Mills in Griffin, Georgia. This once-proud company was forced to close earlier this year because it couldn’t compete with cheap, tariff-free imports flooding the U.S. market.
Finally, out west, Arizona has long been a hub for aluminum production. This key industry employs thousands of the state’s workers and contributes nearly $38 billion to Arizona’s economy.
Yet under the administration’s weak enforcement of U.S. trade protections, Arizona aluminum manufacturers are being hammered by Chinese and Mexican aluminum imports, which have surged by over 80% since 2020.
Factories such as Arconic in Chandler, Arizona, have shut down, and the aluminum can manufacturer Ball Corp. closed its Phoenix plant in 2022.
These closings are not isolated. They are emblematic of the Biden-Harris administration’s failure to protect American industries from unfair foreign competition.
Arizona’s energy sector has also been battered. In 2023, Tucson Electric Power announced it would close its last coal-fired power generators by 2027, which will cost the state thousands of jobs and result in higher electricity rates for consumers.
And Arizona’s copper mining industry — vital for producing military equipment and energy infrastructure — has been stalled by regulatory red tape. Projects such as the Oak Flat Copper Mine, which could supply 25% of U.S. copper demand, are in limbo, further weakening Arizona’s economy. At the same time, China strengthens its control over global copper supplies.
Make no mistake about it: Kamala Harris’ policy agenda is a direct attack on American jobs even as it threatens our national security. In just a few short years, her administration has turned America from an energy-independent powerhouse into a nation dependent on foreign oil while allowing China to dominate global markets for aluminum, automobiles, electronics, furniture, steel and textiles.
Instead of taking decisive action to protect American jobs, Ms. Harris has bowed to the globalist agenda — weakening Trump-era tariffs, letting trade cheats run rampant, and flooding the market with cheap foreign goods at the expense of American workers.
As we head into the most critical election of our lifetimes, voters in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona must ask themselves: Can we afford four more years of this? The answer must be a resounding no.
• Peter Navarro was director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing in the Trump White House. This piece is based on the report “Kamala Harris’ Destructive Policy Agenda: The Decline of Manufacturing and Energy Production in Key Battleground States.” Click here to read the full report.
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