Back in November 2021, President Joe Biden visited Detroit to celebrate the opening of Factory Zero and pay homage to his good friend Mary Barra’s commitment to make GM’s fleet all-electric by 2035.
“Mary, I can remember talking to you way back in January about the need for America to lead in electric vehicles,” Biden said, looking toward Barra. “I can remember your dramatic announcement that by 2035, GM would be 100% electric. You changed the whole story, Mary. You did, Mary. You electrified the entire automotive industry. I’m serious. You led, and it matters.”
Biden, a professed “car guy,” also took a spin in GM’s more than 9,000-pound EV Hummer, declaring it “one hell of a vehicle, man.”
It was an extraordinary endorsement from a sitting president—and one that hasn’t aged well.
Of course, it was Tesla that proved there was a profitable market for electric vehicles, but Biden was no fan of Elon Musk, who later called the president “a damp sock puppet.” Regardless, Barra’s EV plans have largely fallen by the wayside, reduced to what she now calls a “north star” ambition that under her leadership will likely never see the light of day.
Barra not only didn’t come close to fulfilling her commitment to “absolutely” sell more EVs in North America than Tesla by 2025, but in the first half of this year Hyundai’s IONIQ 5 and Toyota’s bZ outsold GM’s flagship Equinox EV, which the company builds in Mexico. Hyundai builds the IONIQ 5 in Georgia.
As for the EV Hummer—which energy-efficiency researchers found generates higher lifecycle carbon emissions than a typical gas-powered sedan—the vehicle’s first-half sales totaled roughly half those of Tesla’s Cybertruck, the only full-size pickup to earn the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s highest Top Safety Pick+ designation. By contrast, multiple reviewers criticized the EV Hummer’s poor driver visibility and what they described as insufficient braking power. So much for Barra’s “Zero Crashes” mantra.
Nearly five years later, another president would stand beside the same CEO and tell a different story about General Motors.
President Trump on Monday did Joe Biden’s alternative realities proud, standing alongside Mary Barra and claiming that GM, Michigan, and Detroit have benefited from his tariff policies.
Opting for the company’s expansive proving grounds in Milford—a heavily secured automotive test track designed to shield future vehicle programs from prying competitive eyes—Trump instead turned the facility into the backdrop for economic performance art.
“I’ve done more for you than your parents, OK?” Trump told a crowd of autoworkers, claiming his tariffs had revived American auto production. “America is back and it’s pulling Detroit and Michigan along with it.”
The speeches were different. The GM backdrop was the same. Biden celebrated Barra as the woman who electrified the auto industry. Trump celebrated her as proof that tariffs had restored American manufacturing. Both narratives ignored how GM actually builds and sells vehicles.
According to the nonpartisan Bridge Michigan, the state lost roughly 4,000 auto parts manufacturing jobs in the year ending June 2026, a 3.5 percent decline from the same month a year earlier. Those figures don’t include the 1,200 jobs eliminated at Factory Zero—whose workforce has been cut roughly in half—or the hundreds of salaried positions GM eliminated in Michigan earlier this year.
GM also shifted thousands of salaried jobs out of Detroit to its suburban Warren campus, and it won’t disclose how many employees are permanently assigned to its supposed “global headquarters” at Hudson’s Detroit, where it rents four floors outfitted with 14 conference rooms, 52 huddle rooms, 63 phone rooms, and three “town commons.” Just four GM executives have assigned offices there.
Trump claiming Detroit has benefited from his policies while standing inside a GM facility in suburban Oakland County underscored just how disconnected the venue was from Michigan’s automotive reality.
GM likes to tout that it has invested $4 billion in U.S. manufacturing since Trump took office, but that figure doesn’t represent a net expansion of American auto production. It is largely a defensive reallocation of capital intended to blunt an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion annual hit from 25 percent tariffs on imported vehicles and components.
And that’s where the political messaging collides with GM’s operating reality.
According to Cars.com’s American-Made Index—which evaluates assembly location, domestic parts content, engine and transmission sourcing, and U.S. manufacturing employment relative to production volume—GM failed to place a single vehicle in the Top 20, trailing Tesla, Honda, Toyota, Stellantis, and Ford.
The corporate auto media has largely ignored that GM last year invested $1 billion in Mexico and another $600 million in South Korea and quietly expanded the very overseas operations that supply most of the affordable GM vehicles Americans can buy.
In Mexico, GM has begun assembling vehicles designed and engineered by SAIC, its China-based joint venture partner, to sidestep punitive tariffs imposed on direct Chinese imports into Mexico. The vehicles are sold under the Chevrolet badge, leveraging an iconic American brand to market Chinese-engineered hardware.
The power shift in the SAIC-GM partnership is an American embarrassment. When the joint venture was formed nearly three decades ago, SAIC depended on GM’s engineering expertise. Today, SAIC’s technological capabilities have surpassed GM’s.
Among SAIC’s engineering feats is the Roewe D7 plug-in hybrid, developed independently of GM, which entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2024 after traveling 1,372 miles on a single tank of fuel and a single battery charge.
South Korea tells a similar story.
GM is operating its Korean plants at full throttle, targeting annual production of 500,000 vehicles to build entry-level crossovers including the Chevrolet Trax and Trailblazer, along with the Buick Envista and Encore GX. While GM eliminated 1,200 assembly jobs at Factory Zero, it backed its 12,000 South Korean workers with a $600 million plant expansion to meet growing U.S. demand.
The contrast couldn’t be much starker.
High-margin, headline-grabbing political photo-ops happen in Michigan, but many of GM’s affordable vehicles are built by foreign labor an ocean away. The lone exception is the Chevrolet Bolt, a limited-production EV GM plans to discontinue next year.
That same disconnect is now showing up in Washington.
Trump’s tariffs have increased costs for American consumers, pushing new vehicle prices even further beyond the reach of many buyers. At the same time, Barra is lobbying Washington to help insulate GM’s moribund Cadillac from growing competition. The closely followed 2026 American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Cadillac dead last among luxury automakers.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz revealed that GM was behind legislation to strengthen restrictions on Chinese automakers entering the U.S. market. The measure also threatens to sweep in Mercedes-Benz, whose parent company has substantial Chinese ownership while also investing more than $7 billion in American manufacturing.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, publicly accused Barra of leading congressional efforts to overturn California’s aggressive EV mandates—even as Barra continues describing electric vehicles as GM’s “north star.”
Talk about hypocrisy.
Trump, who professes superior negotiating skills, pressured the military and major defense contractors to steer work toward GM as the Pentagon scrambles to replenish munitions depleted during the Iran conflict. GM has yet to secure a single defense contract. Even so, Barra assured Wall Street last week that GM’s defense business would generate double-digit margins—higher than its core automotive operations.
During World War II, federal excess-profits taxes and statutory limits ensured that defense contractors couldn’t transform a national emergency into a high-margin business opportunity.
It’s to Barra’s credit that she has managed to play two very different presidents to GM’s advantage, which arguably makes her worth the roughly $30 million a year she’s earned over the past two years.
What’s alarming is that neither commander in chief recognized that what’s good for Mary Barra’s General Motors hasn’t been good for America for quite some time.