Rails against Chinese EV company

Trump rails against Chinese EV company that paid his campaign manager’s lobbying firm nearly $1 million.

Susie Wiles said she doesn’t “advise President Trump on policy (sometimes I wish I did) and certainly nothing related to autos, etc. and I have no visibility into this company.”

Adam Wren

Donald Trump has long railed against electric vehicles while campaigning throughout Michigan, saying Kamala Harris “wants to end all gas-powered cars” and that a factory from a “Chinese” electric battery company planned in Northern Michigan “would be very bad for the State and our Country.”

“It would put Michiganders under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. I AM 100% OPPOSED!,” Trump posted to Truth Social in August.

But that company — Gotion, a subsidiary of which is building a battery plant in Big Rapids — has paid the lobbying firm co-chaired by Trump’s own campaign manager nearly $1 million over the last two years.

Mercury Public Affairs is co-chaired by Susie Wiles, the Florida Republican who is among those considered contenders to become Trump’s chief of staff if he wins a second term. The firm pocketed $700,000 in 2024 and $200,000 in 2023 from Gotion, according to lobbying disclosures filed with the U.S. House and Senate.

In a statement, Wiles said she had not “been actively working at Mercury since the presidential campaign started” and is “not a partner at the company so I don’t share in any profits.”

Wiles added that she doesn’t “advise President Trump on policy (sometimes I wish I did) and certainly nothing related to autos, etc. and I have no visibility into this company.”