President Joe Biden traveled to Minneapolis on April 3 as part of his administration’s “Investing in America” tour to promote his economic agenda ahead of a potential reelection bid announcement.
The president visited Cummins, an engine manufacturer that recently announced a $1 billion investment to upgrade its plants in North Carolina, Indiana, and New York, a move that would create hundreds of new jobs.
“Federal investment attracts private investment,” Biden said at the start of his speech, and he repeated his motto of building the economy “from the bottom up and middle out.”
He praised his legislative victories, such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, for assisting Cummins in expanding its U.S. production.
Cummins engines are used in more than half of all medium- and heavy-duty trucks on U.S. roads, and the new investment would help “manufacture low- to zero-carbon engines, helping decarbonize the nation’s truck fleets,” according to the White House.
Biden touted his economic agenda and that it has unleashed “more than $435 billion in private investment in less than two years,” including more than $2 billion in Minnesota, during his remarks at the Cummins facility.
Biden cautioned that Republican policies would undo the progress made by his administration, which has become a theme of his speeches recently.
“Folks, unfortunately, this is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said. “MAGA Republicans in Congress threatened to undo all this progress.”
“Well, I’ve got news for my MAGA Republican friends: Not on my watch.”
Biden has recently embarked on a tour of U.S. states to tell Americans that his economic agenda has led to robust employment growth and billions of dollars of investments in manufacturing and clean energy. Biden’s first stop was Durham, North Carolina, last week, where he visited Wolfspeed, a semiconductor factory.
Biden is expected to announce a reelection bid by this summer, and his “Investing in America” tour coincides with his approval ratings’ falling to near record lows. In a recent poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the president’s approval rating dropped to 38 percent from 45 percent in February.
Biden’s handling of the nation’s economy has been a source of concern for many Americans since late 2021 because of stubbornly high inflation and ongoing recession fears.
