Michigan officials promote business ties

Despite US President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric about building a trade wall, officials from Michigan, one of the key battleground states in the election, have come to China seeking to attract more Chinese investors.

As the recently concluded US presidential election produced a surprise result, local officials are left to wait and see who will be part of the new administration, officials said on Friday.

Once Trump is in office, “my encouragement to him will be to continue to have positive relationships and strong relationships with China,” Rick Snyder, Republican governor of the State of Michigan, told a press briefing held in Beijing on Friday.

Snyder never endorsed the President-elect and called some of his past remarks “revolting and disgusting,” according to the US news site CBS.

Snyder, who has made six trips to the country during the past six years, noted that he wanted to time this year’s visit to fall after the election because no one knew who was likely to triumph on election night. While seeing great value in the relationships built between Michigan and China, Snyder invited Detroit Democratic mayor Mike Duggan to join him for the first time, with the aim of showing their Chinese counterparts that the division between the two major parties in the US could be overcome by working together to improve the business and investment environment.

The total volume of exports from Michigan to China reached $3.2 billion in 2015, with over 30 percent coming from transportation equipment, data from the US Department of Commerce showed. Meanwhile, imports from China to Michigan totaled $9.2 billion, including transportation equipment, computers and electronics, and machinery, the official data noted.

“Both countries benefit by having people in both countries have good well-paying jobs,” Snyder said.

“As a businessperson himself, Trump’s products are produced in other countries,” Duggan told the Global Times.

As there are many manufacturing workers in Detroit making products for export, “if other countries stop buying from us, it means there are layoffs in America,” he said, noting that one of the biggest issues is there are almost no small cars made in America, as the profits on small cars are low, and these jobs have moved offshore to countries with lower wages such as Mexico.