Biden debuts blue-collar manufacturing push in battleground North Carolina
Christian Datoc
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President Joe Biden touted his administration’s support for labor unions and American manufacturing in North Carolina on Tuesday, continuing a soft rollout of his 2024 reelection platform.
Biden, speaking to a crowd at a Wolfspeed manufacturing center, opened by yet again calling on Congress to pass a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines following Monday’s deadly school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.
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The president’s remarks mirrored past speeches he has given in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and other states in the lead-up to announcing his campaign and on Tuesday reiterated his plan to “invest in America and invest in North Carolina.”
“We’re creating jobs. We’re exporting jobs no longer,” he stated. “American products are being made here. We’re growing the economy, and today, I announced that since I took office, we’ve attracted jobs, and we’ve attracted $435 billion in private investment in American manufacturing.”
The president also took time to criticize “MAGA Republicans” for “threatening to refuse to pay America’s bills.”
“MAGA Republicans in Congress all want to gut the CHIPS and Science Act that’s tripling our investments in the next generation science and technology, like biomanufacturing, quantum computing, and miraculous molecular electronics,” Biden stated.
“Not on my watch,” the president concluded. “We’re not gonna let them undo all the progress we made.”
In addition to his remarks Tuesday, Biden toured the “Power Applications Lab at Wolfspeed, where semiconductor materials, including silicon carbide wafers, are manufactured. He will also meet with union workers during the tour and discuss how his Investing in America agenda is creating good-paying jobs in North Carolina and across the country,” White House officials said.
Biden has placed a concerted effort on boosting domestic manufacturing of semiconductor chips and other advanced technological components, including his stewardship of the CHIPS and Science Act through Congress last year.
Furthermore, on Monday, the president invoked the Defense Production Act to surge the domestic production of certain technologies utilized by the Department of Defense.
The move specifically waived statutory requirements for printed circuit boards, their components, and “the manufacturing systems that produce such systems and components” as “industrial resources, materials, or critical technology items essential to national defense,” allowing the government to pursue their procurement through domestic manufacturers aggressively.
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“Without Presidential action under section 303 of the Act, United States industry cannot reasonably be expected to provide the capability for the needed industrial resource, material, or critical technology item in a timely manner,” Biden wrote in a memo announcing the waivers. “Purchases, purchase commitments, or other action pursuant to section 303 of the Act are the most cost-effective, expedient, and practical alternative method for meeting the need.”
You can watch Biden’s remarks in full below.
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