LANSING — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Sept. 15 denounced as “a huge capitulation” President Donald Trump’s statement that he would be OK with China building automobiles in the U.S.

“If I’m the Big 3 right now, I’m pissed off as hell at Donald Trump,” El-Sayed said at a news conference after giving a 20 minute speech to the UAW’s 2026 Michigan Community Action Program (CAP) Conference in Lansing.

“He just pulled the rug out from underneath them.”

UAW International President Shawn Fain, who joined El-Sayed at the news conference in a Lansing hotel, said Trump’s Sept. 11 remarks on Fox News are “a slap in the face to America.” Fain said allowing China to build cars in the U.S. is a national security issue and “we shouldn’t be doing business with countries that basically want slave labor.”

Trump said on the Fox News program “The Ingraham Angle” that if China wanted to build cars in the U.S., “I’d be OK with that,” Reuters reported and “the big thing is they hire our people.”

U.S. automakers have urged Trump not to agree to allow Chinese automakers access to the U.S. market.

A regulation imposed by former President Joe ​Biden’s administration early in 2025 effectively bans all Chinese automakers from selling or building passenger vehicles in the U.S. Washington also maintains more than 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

During his speech to the UAW members, El-Sayed said he wants the U.S. to continue to be the world’s leader in internal combustion engines and “I want to be the world’s leader in EVs (electric vehicles), too.”

He said the U.S. can do that, with the proper investment, and the “moon shot” should be an EV with a 300-mile range that retails for $25,000.

“Ours would beat the hell out of whatever China is putting out,” El-Sayed said in his speech.

But asked about Trump’s remarks after the speech, El-Sayed suggested the U.S. isn’t ready to compete with China manufacturing cars in the U.S.

“We’re going to need the industrial policy to do that,” and “we have not had that for a very long time,” El-Sayed said. He said China has been able to take American technology and use it to produce cheap vehicles with non-union labor. The U.S. needs to encourage more investment in manufacturing, partly by banning corporate stock buybacks, and improve policies put forward by lawmakers by banning corporate money in politics, he said.

Trump’s comments were surprising from a president who “based his whole political rise about defeating China,” he said.

A spokeswoman for former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, of White Lake Township, El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race that is drawing national attention, did not immediately respond to a text message asking whether Rogers agrees with Trump’s remarks about China building cars in the U.S.

The UAW endorsed El-Sayed in June, ahead of his August Democratic primary contest with U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: El-Sayed, Fain condemn Trump remarks about China building cars in US

Reporting by Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect