ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. — President Barack Obama cast himself as a savior of the U.S. auto industry Friday, standing in a once-shuttered Michigan assembly plant with the president of South Korea to boast of a new trade deal and the auto bailout he pushed through Congress.
“The investment paid off,” Obama said.
At his side, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak donned a Detroit Tigers cap to assure U.S. autoworkers that the new U.S.-South Korea trade pact wouldn’t steal American jobs.
“This is the pledge that I give you,” said Lee, acknowledging the suspicion with which U.S. labor unions view trade agreements.
In a rare political spectacle of a visiting head of state on a field trip outside Washington with the U.S. president, both sounded boosterish about American industry. Lee said the trade pact “will create more jobs for you and your family. And it is going to protect your jobs.”
The trip took Obama to a state that is key to his re-election hopes and where the unemployment rate is the third-highest in the country. On his last visit to Michigan, he delivered a Labor Day speech in Detroit.
But in singling out the auto industry for special attention, Obama and his advisers think he has a winning issue that stretches beyond Michigan and into other Midwestern states where automakers have a sizable footprint.
In 2010, U.S. automakers exported fewer than 14,000 cars to South Korea, while South Korea exported 515,000 cars to the U.S., according to congressional staff. Obama and Lee said the long-delayed new trade pact would help turn that around.
