Michigan Already Seeing Manufacturing Recession, Says Rep. Andy Levin
“The chaos of the president’s trade policy is really paralyzing manufacturing,” says Levin.
Members of Congress are back in Washington D.C. this week after their summer break.
There are plenty of pressing issues to address, but not much hope for action on issues such as gun violence, healthcare, climate change, and more.
The threat of a looming recession is another concern facing lawmakers. It’s unclear whether the national economy is headed toward a major recession right now. But one member of Michigan’s congressional delegation says Southeast Michigan is already seeing a manufacturing recession.
“We’re seeing the beginnings, I’m very sorry to say, of a manufacturing recession, at least in our area,” says Rep. Andy Levin (D-Bloomfield Twp.) on Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson.
Levin puts much of the blame President Trump’s economic policies.
“The chaos of the president’s trade policy is really paralyzing manufacturing,” he says. “That plus the reduction in trade between the U.S. and China and the tariffs that the president is sort of shooting off scattershot around the world, it’s all really chilling the manufacturing economy. And we’re starting to see the effects and it’s not great for the area.”
Levin also discusses actions that the House has taken to address gun violence, and the lack of action in the Senate on that and other issues. He’s hopeful that Senate leadership will eventually feel enough pressure from GOP members to move on some of these issues.
“Mitch McConnell can sit there and be Moscow Mitch and do nothing and say ‘I’m the Grim Reaper,’ but at some point, I believe he’s going to be under pressure from his own Republican senators who say, ‘Uh, Mitch, I don’t think I’m going to get reelected if we do nothing, if we just don’t do our job,” he says.
