Vice President JD Vance and SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler speak to workers at Vantage Plastics in Bay City, Michigan.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Wow. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Kelly Leffler, administrator of the U.S. Small Business
00:10Administration. I'm so thrilled to join so many hardworking Michiganders to talk about
00:16how President Trump is bringing American manufacturing back. I couldn't be more honored to do so
00:27alongside a true champion for blue-collar America, Vice President J.D. Vance. I also
00:41want to recognize Paul Altman. He's the president of Vantage Plastics and one of the millions
00:49of small business owners who have used the SBA to supercharge their growth. Let's give
00:54a hand to Paul. Now you know, Vantage is an American success story. And right now, however,
01:10there are protesters who are upset that we have come here to celebrate American industry
01:16while I've got bad news for them. This administration will never apologize for standing behind the
01:23hardworking Americans who power this great nation. Now 99% of all manufacturers in America
01:37are small businesses. They create good-paying jobs. They keep foreign adversaries like China
01:44out of our supply chains. They build infrastructure that keeps us strong, safe, and competitive
01:50from weapons to drones to semiconductors and cars. Now after four long years, we're
01:56excited to say Made in America is back. Now earlier this week I announced SBA's new Made
02:10in America initiative. Not only will it bring back the strong blue-collar boom of the first
02:16administration, it will send a clear signal that America is no longer willing to sacrifice
02:22its economic dominance by bowing to trade deals that are unfair and a woke, bloated
02:29bureaucracy. This administration is putting American jobs, products, and national security
02:35first. Now you may have seen in just a few short weeks, President Trump already delivered
02:4710,000 manufacturing jobs right here in America. He secured over $2 trillion in investment
02:55to build manufacturing, and he has driven small business confidence to historic highs.
03:01The SBA is proud to support this pro-growth agenda by cutting $100 billion in regulatory
03:09red tape that strangles small businesses just like this one. We are going to help manufacturers
03:14expand and hire by improving access to capital, and we will work alongside President Trump
03:20to support tax cuts and fair trade deals, because he is fighting for the American worker.
03:30Now I'm so proud that this administration is a force multiplier for job creation and
03:40American industry, and it is clear that the age, the golden era of manufacturing in America
03:48is not behind us, it's in front of us. And so I am so proud that the SBA stands with
03:54President Trump and Vice President Vance to build a future where the American workers
03:59and business lead the world by making Main Street great again.
04:06Now, I am incredibly humbled and have the honor to introduce our nation's 50th and
04:16greatest Vice President, who is helping lead the charge to bring this golden age of manufacturing
04:22in America back. So please join me in welcoming to the stage Vice President J.D. Vance and
04:27his incredible wife, Usha Vance. Thank you all.
04:46Hey, guys. Well, thank you. It's great to be back in Michigan. You know, I've missed
05:07it a little bit. We haven't spent so much time in Michigan since the election, but it's
05:12good to be back in God's country. And I've got to tell you, every opportunity I get to
05:17get the hell out of Washington, D.C., that is a good day. That is a good day. I want
05:23to thank Kelly Loeffler for that incredibly kind introduction. You know, Kelly is doing
05:27a great job at the Small Business Administration. You all would be shocked if you realized how
05:33much fraud we found, even at the Small Business Administration. I'm talking about, like, dead
05:38people getting loans from the SBA. We don't want dead people getting loans from the SBA.
05:43We want American workers and American businesses getting loans from the Small Business Administration.
05:48And Kelly is doing a great job making sure that we do exactly that. I want to say thank
05:52you to Paul. It's great to be here at Vantage Plastics, a great American company with great
05:58American workers. So thank you to Paul Altman and thank you to the entire team here at Vantage
06:10Plastics. It's great to be here. It's great to be with American workers. And again, like
06:15I said, it's great to be out of the bubble in Washington, D.C. Now, as Kelly mentioned,
06:20I was I was listening to her backstage. You know, we came in. We've got this great event,
06:24this great facility, great business and, of course, great workers. And I'm sure all
06:28of us saw there were a few protesters outside. And I can't be the only person wondering,
06:33you know, it's a little after noon on a Friday. And don't you all have jobs? Who are the people?
06:47And I think that's that's one of the reasons why we've got to rebuild American manufacturing
06:52and support great companies like Vantage Plastics, because we want those people to
06:55get off the streets and back to work. It'd be good for them and it'd be good for everybody
06:59else, too. Now, you all don't hold it against me, of course, you know that I'm from that
07:09state, just one state south. But we know we know in the we know in the industrial Midwest
07:16that companies like Vantage give Great Lakes states the reputation that we know it is the
07:22powerhouse of American industry and that makes it the powerhouse of world industry. I'm grateful
07:28for the good paying jobs this company brings to the area and for the incredible job this
07:34business does, generating economic opportunity in this region of our country. And I really
07:41do believe that America's success depends on the success of companies like Vantage Plastics.
07:47And I don't mean that in some abstract, poetic sounding sense. I mean it literally. If we
07:52do not protect our nation's manufacturers, we lose a fundamental part of who we are as
07:58a people. Making things, building things, working with our hands is America's heritage
08:05and that heritage is alive and well in this facility. Now, our frontier spirit would have
08:18done us little good in conquering the continent if we couldn't manufacture the railway track,
08:24the steamboats, the dynamite and everything else needed to do so. American industry, American
08:30workers famously won the Second World War. American industry took us to the moon and
08:36enabled the Silicon Revolution that created the most precise and sophisticated jobs imaginable
08:42in any field, demanding mechanical expertise on the scale of nanometers, which is so small
08:49you can't even see it. But over the years, I hate to say, we have squandered that heritage
08:54in the United States of America. Not in Vantage Plastics, thank God, but all across our country.
09:00Between the 1990s and the election of Donald Trump the first time back in 2016, this country
09:06lost 5 million good manufacturing jobs and we saw over 90,000 American factories, great
09:15American factories shut their doors. And as I know I don't have to tell anyone here today,
09:21when we lose the ability to make our own stuff, we abandon a way of life, one that has sustained
09:26towns like Bay Cities and countless other communities from Middletown, Ohio to a ton
09:32of communities all across the Midwest. Being able to make things is good because it creates
09:37self-sufficiency as a nation and it creates self-sufficiency in our people. And more importantly,
09:44manufacturing jobs are good for our workers. Now we know this, you all know this, they
09:49pay a premium of 10% compared to wages in other fields and other roles. They often come
09:54with the good benefits and the good job creation that drives the kind of economic opportunity
10:01that we want to see in our country. When we de-industrialize, when we lose those good
10:06jobs that allow us to support families, those are the kinds of things that we lose. And
10:12I think that we need a president, and thank God we have a president, that thinks we're
10:16going to bring it back, and we are.
10:25So, I've got, you know, I've got some bad news and I've got some good news. Do we want
10:30to hear the bad news first or the good news first? Okay, that's good. You all said bad
10:36news and that's good because if you had said good news, that would have totally screwed
10:39up the flow of this speech. I've got to start with the bad news a little bit, then we talk
10:44about the good news. But here's the simple truth. The very simple truth is that unfortunately,
10:51the last administration left us with a terrible economy. They left us with sky-high prices.
10:58They left us with home values that had doubled in just four short years, meaning a lot of
11:04American families couldn't afford to buy or to rent a home. They left us with a historic
11:10debt crisis. Did you know that in the history of the United States of America, we have never
11:15had deficits and debt so high as we had under Joe Biden's leadership? And what did all
11:22that peacetime debt and deficit, what did all that spending, what did all that waste
11:27and fraud get us? It got us an economy where Americans couldn't afford to buy a home, our
11:32families couldn't afford to buy groceries, and our people felt like the American dream
11:37was slipping away. Now, that is the bad news. But now, we can talk a little bit about the
11:43good news, because I'm proud to say that thanks to all of you, on January 20, 2025,
11:50we started a great American comeback.
12:03Last November, America re-elected a president with a simple goal, to power our nation's
12:08industrial comeback and once again, make the U.S. the world's manufacturing superpower,
12:14and that is exactly what President Trump has sought out to do. Now, I have to be honest
12:19with you, the road ahead of us is long, but we are already, in just seven short weeks,
12:24starting to see early indications of the president's vision becoming our shared American reality.
12:32This February, the president's first full month in office, America gained 10,000 American
12:38manufacturing jobs. Now, compare that to last year, when under the Biden administration,
12:43we were losing an average of about 10,000 manufacturing jobs per month. That's over
12:49100,000 jobs and manufacturing lost in a single year under Joe Biden. And we got to ask ourselves,
12:57what has driven the turnaround? Well, first of all, President Trump has been clear about
13:02his plan, about our administration's plan. Our goal is to make it easier and more affordable
13:09to make things again in the United States of America. If you invest in America, in American
13:15jobs, in American workers, and in American businesses, you're going to be rewarded. We're
13:20going to cut your taxes, we're going to slash regulations, and we're going to reduce the
13:24cost of energy to build things right here in this country that all of us love. But if
13:29you try to undercut us and build outside of our borders, the President Trump's administration
13:36has got nothing for you. If you want to be rewarded, build in America. If you want to
13:42be penalized, build outside of America. It's as simple as that.
13:49So, if you've gotten rich the last few decades by ripping off U.S. companies and preying
14:02on American workers, well, the President is simply telling you the jig is up. If you want
14:07to manufacture in China, which has the worst and most punitive economic policies towards
14:12us anywhere in the world, then you are going to have to pay the consequences. And what
14:17we're seeing already is that the world is starting to listen. They appreciate that we're
14:22in a new era in the United States. So, as a result, we're nearing $2 trillion in new
14:28investments announced just since President Trump took office. That's not bad. In seven
14:33weeks, $2 trillion. From auto companies and chip makers to paper and electrical product
14:41manufacturers, companies from all over the world have announced new plants and big expansions
14:48of existing plants in the United States of America. We've seen car factories say two
14:54years ago, two months ago, that they were going to ship American jobs off to Mexico,
14:59and seven weeks ago, they started singing a different tune. Now, part of our comeback
15:05means unleashing America's energy and making it cheaper and making it more affordable for
15:12American businesses and workers to do what they need to do. So, day one in office, President
15:17Trump ended the Green New Scam and ended Biden's war on American energy.
15:22And, of course, we're already seeing the results. Gasoline, its price for consumers,
15:35is finally starting to come down. Last month, it went up by 30, excuse me, last term, it
15:42went up about 35% under Joe Biden's leadership, and we've already seen it fall to significant
15:48lows again. That's just in seven weeks. In its first month, President Trump declared
15:53a national energy emergency and established the National Energy Dominance Council. He's
15:59reopened 625 million acres offshore for drilling and ended Biden's disastrous ban on liquefied
16:07natural gas exports, which risks ending 90,000 American jobs and costing $250 billion for
16:14our country over the long run. It's over. We stopped it.
16:21Now, in doing so, the President paved the way to approve two new massive projects in
16:30the United States. And I've got to say, it's kind of funny to see some of our Democrat
16:34governors in various parts, I won't mention which states exactly, coming to the Oval Office
16:40and begging for economic development under Trump's leadership that they knew they would
16:44never get under Biden's leadership. And I've got to tell you, I carry a word from the President
16:49of the United States that we don't care Democrat, Republican, or Independent, we want to build.
16:54Build, baby, build. That is the slogan and that is the motto of the Trump Administration
16:59and that's exactly what we're going to do.
17:07And most importantly, given where we stand here in Vantage, the Trump Administration
17:10is working hard to slash regulations left and right. And I think, Paul, you'd admit
17:15the regulations, we've got to get that stuff out of here. We've got to make it easier to
17:19build stuff in our own country. We can't have people telling our great builders that if
17:23they want to start a factory or if they want to expand a factory, they're not allowed to.
17:28And that is the biggest thing I think the Trump Administration is working on when it
17:32comes to renewing American manufacturing. This Wednesday, as a matter of fact, the Administration
17:37announced a historic regulatory rollback at the EPA, which will provide relief from all
17:43sorts of heavy-handed rules. These include the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which
17:48costs U.S. factories and power plants hundreds of millions of dollars and that money is now
17:54going to be reinvested in American workers. And we remember the Clean Power Plan 2.0,
18:00which has imperiled America's grid by creating impossible restrictions on coal and natural
18:05gas plants that account for 60% of our power. You can't tell people to build in America
18:11while at the same time destroying American energy. That's what Joe Biden did. What Donald
18:16Trump is doing is saying, build in America and we're going to help you. We're going to
18:19make it more possible and we're going to make it more affordable.
18:23But, you know, I think it's really simple here and I have to say, you know, I'm thrilled,
18:36of course, to have everybody here, thrilled to have Paul hosting us, but I'm especially
18:40thrilled to have my lovely wife here behind me. And I think she's doing a great job as
18:51Second Lady of the United States and I'm so proud to have her by my side. And here's
18:55the thing, because the cameras are all on, anything that I say, no matter how crazy,
19:00Usha has to smile and laugh and celebrate it. So, I'm going to be good though, honey.
19:05I'm going to keep to the script here. But I think that what we're really after here,
19:10and you see so many people attacking the President's economic programs and attacking the progress
19:16that we've made over the past seven weeks, you hear people saying, well, how dare Donald
19:21Trump impose tariffs on foreign countries that have been taking advantage of us for
19:2640 years. And the answer is that unless you're willing to use American power to fight back
19:32against what those countries have been doing for a generation, you are never going to rebuild
19:36American manufacturing and you're never going to support the American worker.
19:40President Trump is done with leaders who talk, talk, talk. We are an administration
19:51that is going to do things for the American people and for American workers. Just think
19:56about this. When foreign countries make it impossible to ship American cars into their
20:02countries, why have we had leadership that refuses to fight back? When we have foreign
20:08countries that use slave labor that undercuts the wages of American workers, why have we
20:13had American leadership that has refused to fight back? When you let literal slaves make
20:19stuff cheaply and then bring it into our country, we all know, you all know, that destroys the
20:25wages of American workers. And so now we have an American media that says, how dare Donald
20:30Trump stand up for the American worker. I think I speak for the American worker when
20:34I say, thank God for President Trump for finally standing up for the American worker.
20:46Enough is enough. For 40 years, the people of this country, the businesses, the workers,
20:51everybody, have been neglected, they have been ignored, and they have had a leadership
20:56that refuses to stand up for them. And that changed just seven short weeks ago. And that
21:01basic change, that basic idea that the purpose of the American presidency is to fight for
21:07the American people will guide our policy for the next four years. And I have to say,
21:12yes, this is not always easy and it doesn't happen overnight. We came into office, again,
21:18with the largest peacetime deficits in American history, $2 trillion. We've never seen
21:25deficits like that ever, and certainly not outside of a time of war. And we ought to
21:29ask ourselves, what did Joe Biden buy with all of our borrowed money? And the answer
21:35is not a damn thing. So we have got to take this country in a different direction, and
21:39that is what President Trump's economic policies aim to do. We are done selling out
21:45the American worker. We are done over-regulating American businesses. We are going to be guided
21:50by a very simple principle. Build in this country, we cut your taxes, we reduce your
21:55regulation, we reduce your energy costs. Build in this country, make American manufacturing
22:00great again, and we are going to fight for you, and the President will, too.
22:04APPLAUSE
22:13So let me conclude, again, by saying thank you. Thanks to Paul for hosting. Thank you
22:18to your incredible facility and for what you do every single day. But as a kid who grew
22:23up in a working-class family, let me just say this, that when I was growing up in Middletown,
22:28Ohio, everybody who worked hard seemed to be able to find a good job. And something
22:34changed. I don't know when I was a teenager or maybe a little bit later, but when that
22:38great steel mill that supported the town was the lifeblood of the town that I grew up in,
22:44when it went from 10,000 jobs to 2,000 jobs, the American working people started to get
22:49destroyed in the process. We can't keep doing that. We can't keep running the same exact
22:55playbook over and over again, expecting different results. We've got to run a different playbook.
23:01And seven weeks ago, President Trump started to run that different playbook. We are not
23:06going to borrow from future generations to buy stuff that the Communist Chinese make
23:11for us. We are not going to put people on welfare instead of giving them good, middle-class
23:17American jobs. We are not going to drive housing through the roof. We are going to make it
23:21affordable again to afford an American home. That is what we're trying to do. And yes,
23:27my friends, it's not going to happen overnight. We're not going to be able to fix everything
23:33that Joe Biden broke. But I think after seven weeks, the progress is pretty good. Egg prices
23:38are lower than they were when we took office. That's good.
23:43We've got gasoline is much lower than it was when we took office. We've got inflation
23:50at the lowest level that we've seen in many years for the American people. So we're making
23:55very, very good progress. But we know that seven weeks is not enough. What we need to
24:01really rebuild American manufacturing, to really invest in the American worker, is not
24:06just seven weeks of solid progress. It is four years of President Trump fighting for
24:12the American people every single day.
24:22Let me say, this is not going to be my last stop in Michigan by any means, but as I leave
24:28here to go back to Washington, I feel invigorated. I feel invigorated by what you're building
24:33at this facility. I feel invigorated by the incredible opportunities that this plant,
24:39this facility provides to American workers. I feel invigorated by the fact that you guys
24:44are dedicated to your communities, that you're working hard every single day, you're playing
24:49by the rules, and you're providing a good life for your families. And I feel invigorated
24:53that we finally have a president who is turning his back on 40 years of failed policy in Washington,
25:00D.C., and is getting back to investing in and fighting for the American worker. God
25:05bless you guys. Thank you all. Thank you for having me.