MONITOR TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WNEM) — Sen. Elissa Slotkin spoke in Monitor Township Thursday where SK Siltron is closing its semiconductor facility, leaving 140 people without a job.
“I think that it’s important that we recognize that unless we fight for it and show up for our communities, we’re going to lose opportunities because of politics,” Slotkin said.
Slotkin and Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet say the closure is due to the Trump administration’s energy and economic policies.
“When we make ideological decisions to do things like take sources of energy off the table when we as a country create chaotic tariff regime that changes multiple times, and are reckless in the way that we approach trade in general and what is important for business to thrive, it’s that chaos that causes businesses to close,” McDonald Rivet said.
Lawmakers cite instability
McDonald Rivet says stability is what’s most important for businesses to stay open. Slotkin agrees.
“When you create these really volatile conditions, when you don’t know what’s going to be tariffed and how much you’re going to have to spend as a company to bring in source materials, when you don’t know who in your supply chain you can rely on, it is really hard to make investments and make decisions to stay in places,” Slotkin said.
Both say this closure isn’t limited to Monitor Township. SanDisk Corporation had planned to build a semiconductor facility in Genesee County’s Mundy Township, which would have created about 10,000 jobs. The governor said the company ended its ambitions due to economic uncertainty.
Facility history
SK Siltron opened in Bay County in 2022 with both Democratic and Republican support. Its products were made for electric vehicles. Former President Joe Biden visited the site shortly after.
Slotkin and McDonald Rivet are calling for a turn-around in policy to prevent further job loss.
White House response
We’ve reached out to the White House. A spokesperson shared the following statement:
This unfortunate closure has nothing to do with President Trump’s tariffs, which have secured trillions in high-tech manufacturing investments, and everything to do with Joe Biden and Democrats’ Green New Scam policies. Biden and Democrats pushed unpopular EV mandates and then threw billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize uneconomic EV and EV part manufacturing. President Trump’s economic agenda, on the other hand, has a proven track record of creating jobs and economic growth, and as these policies and trillions in investments continue to materialize, Americans can count on more relief ahead.
The facility was built with the help of a $544 million loan from the federal government. SK Siltron says that loan has been paid off.
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