Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both are aiming to be the candidate of manufacturing, but this week, they offered radically different pictures of the state of that industry while promising to help in nearly opposite ways.
Vice President Harris spoke Wednesday before the Economic Club of Pittsburgh where she unveiled the third plank of her "opportunity economy" agenda focused on spurring new factories.
"I will recommit the nation to global leadership in the sectors that will define the next century," she said in her speech, which highlighted industries like aerospace, AI, and quantum computing as likely to come in particular focus in a potential Harris administration.
She added she wanted advancements in these areas "not just being invented but built here in America by American workers.”
Underlining her remarks was flurry of manufacturing activity in recent years under the Biden-Harris administration, with Harris casting her plans as a way to continue that upward trend.
A series of recent government efforts, from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to new green energy incentives to the CHIPS and Science Act focused on semiconductors, contributed to a more than threefold increase in new US factory construction in recent years.
Former President Donald Trump, by contrast, painted a darker portrait of the state of manufacturing and offered a different approach in a speech Tuesday. In that address, he focused on using new protective tariffs alongside other measures like lower corporate taxes and fewer regulations as a means to spur factory building.
"With the vision I'm outlining today, not only will we stop our businesses from leaving for foreign lands, but under my leadership, we are going to take other countries' jobs," Trump promised the crowd in Savannah, Ga.
He also called recent years a "horror show" for manufacturing but ignored the boom in factory construction — a metric that was largely flat during his four years in office.
He focused instead on specific examples of increasing foreign footprints among well-known companies like GE (GE) and IBM (IBM), as well as the possible sale of US Steel (X) to Nippon Steel in Japan.
But, at least in the case of the proposed sale of US Steel, company officials on both sides of that possible acquisition said they wouldn't move additional steel manufacturing overseas if the deal is approved in the coming months.
President Biden has also announced his opposition to the US Steel deal and his administration is reportedly looking to block it, but it remains to be seen if he will act before November's election.
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump at a campaign event in on September 24 in Savannah, Georgia. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) ·(Brandon Bell via Getty Images)
A Harris plan to build on Biden's policies
Underlying the focus from Harris and Trump this week is a recent campaign trail trend that has seen Harris make significant gains among voters on the issue of the overall economy since taking the Democratic mantle from President Joe Biden this summer.
Harris and her campaign are hoping to use this week's speech to further a trend that has seen her tied at 46% on economic issues in a recent Morning Consult poll and ahead in Financial Times polls in both August and September.
Other polls have her close behind Trump on economic issues nationally and in key swing states.
The overall message in Wednesday's speech was for Harris to outline her overall economic vision including previously announced plans around small businesses and the cost of living.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris arrives to deliver an economic speech in Pittsburgh on September 25. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) ·(JIM WATSON via Getty Images)
A message of 'pragmatism'
But for this speech, much of the focus was on Harris's message of pragmatism.
"I promise you I will be pragmatic in my approach," she said, citing Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts at “bold, persistent experimentation.”
The focus on pragmatism is a clear effort to draw a contrast with Republicans and appeal to moderate voters who might be wary of Harris’s economic bona fides but are also wary of Donald Trump’s approach there.
The message is in part “reacting to a reflexive free-market, trickle-down dogma for the last 40-odd years from the other side that starts with an answer that is always tax cuts and deregulation, whatever the question," said Jennifer Harris, who helped lead industrial policy in the early years of the Biden administration.
Which argument is more appealing to the millions of manufacturing-minded voters in swing states remains to be seen.
Will the idea of a "horror show" declared by Trump resonate with voters? Or can Harris convince them that this aspect of Biden's largely unpopular economic agenda is one to embrace?
The number of manufacturing jobs did grow under Trump in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic. But those economic disruptions led to the loss of over 1 million manufacturing jobs, according to government data.
Those jobs have now returned, and currently, more Americans work in manufacturing than at any time since the end of the George W. Bush administration. But it's still a far cry from the heyday of manufacturing decades prior.
This post has been updated with additional developments.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
