Forty years after his grandfather welded steel at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works plant, Vice President JD Vance stood in that same factory Friday to announce a $1 billion investment that he says will help reverse decades of American manufacturing decline.
The investment from Cleveland-Cliffs, backed by a $500 million grant from the Trump administration, marks a major win for the Ohio steel town that Vance has long held up as a symbol of the American heartland’s struggles. It was his first appearance in Middletown since taking office as the nation’s second-highest elected official.
“Papaw was a welder in this place for 40 years, and today, his grandson stands here as the Vice President of these United States,” Vance told the crowd. “It’s an amazing thing.”
But the vice president didn’t dwell on nostalgia. He credited Energy Secretary Chris Wright and President Trump’s energy dominance agenda for making the investment possible, framing it as proof that the administration’s economic policies are delivering results for working families.
Vance described factory workers being able to provide for their families as “the American dream,” a dream he said politicians abandoned for too long.
“My papaw hated the politicians who ignored this place. He hated the people who saw this as the place of the past,” Vance said. “He hated the people who forgot about this town when they should have been fighting for this town.”
The vice president connected factory closures to the broader devastation that swept through communities like Middletown. He recalled growing up and hearing how friends’ fathers had lost their jobs when factories moved overseas. Then came the opioid crisis, which Vance noted “exploded in the very locations where jobs were shipped overseas.”
Open borders “brought the fentanyl trade,” he said, and “left us with millions of orphan children being raised by grieved grandparents,” including his own.
“The blood of those people, in my view, it pools at the feet of those who would sell out their country for a cheap bottom line,” Vance declared.
The speech also served as a progress report on the Trump administration’s manufacturing agenda. Vance touted the creation of more than 29,000 new manufacturing jobs in 2026 so far, reversing years of decline in the sector. Manufacturing workers’ wages have risen 4.2% year over year, he said, compared to declines under the Biden administration.
“In November of 2024, you made a choice to reverse 40 years of American decline and make Donald Trump the president of the United States,” Vance told supporters. “And I’m not saying it’s going to be easy or it’s all going to happen overnight, but in just 18 months, we have seen an explosion of rebuilding in the American heartland.”
The vice president pointed to “trillions” of dollars in new investment flowing into the country to build smelters, manufacturing facilities, and mills.
On immigration, Vance highlighted what he called “maybe the thing I’m the most proud of in the last 18 months.” For the first time in his lifetime, he said, America saw net migration out of the country as the administration sent millions of illegal immigrants back home. The result: net job growth over that period “went to native-born Americans,” reversing a longstanding trend.
Vance also warned companies that hiring foreign workers over Americans would result in tariffs.
The Middletown announcement represents the kind of tangible investment that the Trump administration has argued will bring back prosperity to forgotten American communities. For Vance, it was personal.
