Trump says Obama was ‘bad’ for the auto industry: ‘I’ve done more for you than your parents!’

As Trump claimed credit for reviving the auto industry in Michigan, Democratic leaders warned that Black workers and manufacturers continue to feel the effects of economic uncertainty and tariffs.

President Donald Trump took jabs at former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris as he delivered remarks in Michigan, where he claimed he has brought back the auto industry.

“For decades, we were told it was totally impossible to bring back American manufacturing. Obama would say…remember Barack Hussein Obama? Obama. He was so bad for the auto industry,” President Trump said on Monday.

Trump, using a term he often uses when referring to Democrats, continued, “I don’t know. You know, honestly, I don’t know how you vote for Dumacrats because they are so bad for the industry.”

The president also took aim at Biden and Harris, both of whom he ran against in the 2024 presidential election.

Referring to Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union, who endorsed the presidential campaigns of Biden and Harris, Trump said, “He thought that Biden or Kamala would be wonderful…you wouldn’t have an auto industry right now if they got elected.”

Trump traveled to Milfred, Michigan, in the Detroit suburbs, to tout what he described as record investments in the auto industry. He was joined by General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra, who said on Monday the auto company is investing $16 billion in manufacturing and research this year.

“We’re building more auto factories and more plants than at any time in the history of our country,” Trump claimed. He told a friendly crowd of attendees, “I’ve done more for you than your parents…I have been better to you than your parents. That I can tell you today.”

He added, “I’m proud to say that the auto industry is back and America is back and it’s pulling Detroit and Michigan along with it.”

Despite the president’s strong pronouncements of a roaring manufacturing and auto industry, the numbers simply do not support his claims. Auto and manufacturing jobs have been in decline for years, and the rising cost of goods driven by Trump’s trade policies and his war with Iran are only causing further disruptions and driving prices higher.

According to data from Trump’s own Department of Labor Statistics, 75,000 manufacturing jobs were lost since he returned to office in 2025. A report from the Joint Economic Committee estimated that as many as 108,000 jobs were lost. Additionally, car sales remain flat, and vehicle costs remain higher than in previous years.

Portia Roberson, vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, tells theGrio that consumers on the ground aren’t feeling the supposed boom that Trump is claiming.

“People don’t feel that on a day-to-day basis,” she asserted. “I don’t think he has a great understanding of what traditional manufacturing is and how it’s almost impossible to go back to that in the same way it was 20 years ago.”

He continued, “He talks often about going back to traditional manufacturing, and I think without any sort of indication of how that’s going to happen, because the world has changed.”

Roberson, who previously worked as the director of Governmental Affairs and Public Liaison at the Department of Justice during the Obama Administration, said the “Big Three” U.S. auto industries–GM, Ford and Chrysler–have been hit by the impact of Trump’s “wild decisions around tariffs.” Explaining the loss of jobs and flat hiring, she told theGrio, “Companies are holding their purse strings because they don’t know what the next change is going to be.”

The Democrat said the pains of the manufacturing industry have especially harmed Black Michiganders, a trend that Black workers are experiencing across the country.

“What our grandparents, specifically around Black people whose grandparents and maybe great grandparents came from the South to Detroit and Chicago and other places, and certainly to Detroit for manufacturing jobs in the Big Three, have realized that those jobs don’t exist really anymore,” said Roberson.

In Michigan, Trump also toured GM’s Proving Ground, where the auto company tests the performance vehicles. While there, the president was treated to a drag race, which the White House reportedly wanted to tie to Trump’s upcoming Freedom 250 Grand Prix, celebrating America’s 250th commemoration.

Roberson said the president’s America 250 celebrations and policies have been “tone deaf,” as there is “no recognition of how this country was built,” referring to formerly enslaved Black Americans and immigrants.

“It is basically a celebration of the things he enjoys, and that’s it. It has not been inclusive in any fashion or form,” she told theGrio. “It must be nice to utilize that to celebrate 250 when people can’t afford gas to get to and from the jobs that he says he’s going to create.”