The Trump White House fired back at Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday after she moved to claim credit for a $43.4 million steel manufacturing expansion in her state, a deal the administration says was made possible by President Trump’s tariff agenda.
Adrian Steel Company announced it will build a new 112,000-square-foot addition to its southeast Michigan facility, its largest expansion since 1953. The project is expected to create at least 40 new jobs.
Whitmer’s office quickly put out a statement. “Michigan is on the move and open for business, competing for and winning big projects in industries like steel manufacturing,” the governor said, pointing to state-level incentives, including a tax break worth up to $228,750 under Michigan’s State Essential Services Assessment program.
The White House had a different take.
“Democrats like Gretchen Whitmer spent decades talking about fixing broken trade deals and creating manufacturing jobs here in America for American workers,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Fox News Digital. “President Trump is actually delivering — and he’s delivering with the same agenda of tariffs, deregulation.”
“This buildout — and the continued health of these vital American industries — is only possible through the continued implementation and strengthening of the President’s Section 232 tariff programs,” the White House added in a statement.
The exchange comes as Trump’s restructured tariff framework, announced earlier this month, reshapes how steel, aluminum, and copper products are taxed at the border. Products made almost entirely of those materials now face a flat 50% tariff on their full value. Derivatives made mostly of a single element carry a 25% rate. Products containing less than 15% of those materials are exempt entirely.
The new parameters are designed to protect domestic producers while giving downstream manufacturers some room. Adrian Steel’s expansion, which will add space for raw material storage, cutting, forming, welding, painting, and assembly operations, fits squarely into the kind of domestic production the administration says it has been working to encourage.
Whitmer has been a vocal critic of the tariffs. Earlier this month she signed an executive directive to assess the tariff impact on state businesses, warning that “the pain of these increased costs from tariffs has not been offset by any of the promised economic gain.” Her office claimed the tariffs cost U.S. automakers $35 billion last year and have run working families an estimated $1,000 per year.
