President’s Wisconsin Divide: Foxconn (Good), Harley (Bad)

MOUNT PLEASANT, Wis. — Standing inside a cavernous warehouse, President Donald Trump cheered the groundbreaking for a Taiwanese electronic screen-making factory on Thursday as a shining example of his economic agenda’s success.

The president described the plans for the $10 billion high-tech campus being built by Foxconn, an electronics supplier for Apple and other tech giants, as the “eighth wonder of the world” and an illustration of his effort to create jobs by renewing manufacturing, attracting foreign investment and adapting a tougher trade policy.

The Foxconn facility, which company officials say could eventually employ as many as 13,000 workers, “is only one part of the exciting story that is playing out across our nation,” Trump said.

Appearing with Gov. Scott Walker, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other state Republicans, Trump noted his own support for locating the campus in Wisconsin, a state that narrowly supported Trump in 2016 and where intense midterm campaigns are already underway. He noted, incorrectly, that he had been the first Republican to get Wisconsin’s support since Dwight D. Eisenhower, though two other Republicans, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, won here, several times, in the interim.

The celebratory event inside a building packed with gleaming new equipment, demonstration booths and polished videos came at a tense moment in Wisconsin on matters of economic policy. For the past few days the president has been engaged in a campaign of words over his trade plans with another of the state’s businesses — Harley-Davidson, the 115-year-old motorcycle maker that has long been an icon of Wisconsin.

Harley Davidson, whose headquarters are less than an hour north of the new Foxconn campus, said this week that the growing international fight over tariffs would force it to move production of some motorcycles overseas. The company said it was responding to the European Union’s new 31 percent tariff on imported motorcycles, imposed in retaliation for Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs.

Trump, who had over several days issued a series of messages on Twitter lashing out at Harley-Davidson, addressed the motorcycle company once again from the warehouse stage on Thursday: “Harley-Davidson, please build those beautiful motorcycles in the USA. Please, OK? Don’t get cute with us. Don’t get cute.”

He added: “Build them in the USA. Your customers won’t be happy if you don’t.”

Plans for the Foxconn factory, too, have been a matter of great debate. Advocates have held it up as opening a new high-tech manufacturing era for the southeastern portion of the state, once a major center for auto assembly.

State officials say the jobs would pay, on average, $53,875 a year plus competitive benefits packages. Walker called it the state’s largest-ever economic development project and said it could help reverse a “brain drain” problem the state has long grappled with.

But critics, some of whom planned demonstrations during the president’s appearance, say that taxpayers’ costs for the new facility will outweigh the benefits. Wisconsin has agreed to more than $4 billion in tax credits and other inducements over a 15-year period, subsidies that amount to thousands of dollars for every job created.

The nonpartisan state Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated it will take 25 years for Wisconsin taxpayers to recoup their investment. Questions have continued, too, about whether Foxconn can deliver on its promises given a mixed record elsewhere and reports of potential modifications to the original plans.

And the critics of Foxconn have raised other concerns: They fear that the plant may benefit only a small edge of the state, not all of Wisconsin; they question the environmental effects given the size of the facility; and they worry about the plant’s demand for water from Lake Michigan.

The debate over Foxconn is certain to play out this fall in Wisconsin’s competitive political races, including fights for governor, a U.S. Senate seat and a handful of state Senate seats that could decide whether Republicans keep total control in Madison, the capital. Democrats who hope to replace Walker — eight are vying for the Democratic nomination in an August primary — have raised pointed critiques about Foxconn and Walker’s role in bringing it. This month, a statewide survey, the Marquette Law School Poll, found a mix of views on Foxconn. A majority, 56 percent, said they believed that the Foxconn plant will improve the Milwaukee region’s economy. At the same time, 46 percent said they believed the state was paying more than the plant was worth; only 40 percent said they thought Foxconn will provide at least as much value as the state is putting in.

With campaigns underway, Trump’s pointed remarks about Harley-Davidson have also left Walker and other Wisconsin Republicans in a difficult position: How to support one of the state’s beloved companies without crossing the president?

Walker, who has a 2003 Harley Road King and has ridden it regularly during his campaigns, did not mention the company on Thursday. Earlier in the week, he issued a general statement opposing tariffs.

“Gov. Walker believes there should be no tariffs or trade barriers as the president stated earlier this month at the G-7 summit,” Amy Hasenberg, a spokeswoman for the governor, said. “When there’s a level playing field, American workers and businesses win.”

Ryan, who has announced he would not seek re-election to his House seat, said this week that Harley-Davidson’s decision was evidence that raising trade barriers was a bad idea.

“This is further proof of the harm from unilateral tariffs,” Ryan said. “The best way to help American workers, consumers and manufacturers is to open new markets for them, not to raise barriers to our own market.”