U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is unveiling a plan Wednesday to try to protect American workers by raising taxes on companies that move jobs overseas.
Biden, challenging Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 national election, is delivering details of the plan during a campaign stop in the industrial heartland city of Warren, Michigan.
Traditional working-class Democratic voters embraced Trump in his unexpected win in the Midwestern state in 2016, but Biden is hoping to win them back to help him deny Trump a second term in the White House.
Trump is remaining in Washington on Wednesday, but on Thursday will also visit Michigan — considered a must-win political battleground state by both campaigns — and other key electoral states late in the week.
On Friday, both Biden and Trump will be in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the 2001 al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the U.S. A jetliner crashed in a field near Shanksville as passengers tried to overcome hijackers who commandeered the aircraft.
Biden had already called for reversing some of the corporate tax cuts adopted by Congress during Trump's presidency, to push the business tax rate from 21% to 28%. Now, he is calling for a further increase, proposing a tax rate of nearly 31% that would apply to "profits of any production by a United States company overseas for sales back to the United States."
Biden is also promising to sign executive orders, if he wins the presidency, in his first week in office next January to ensure the purchase of American goods in the federal government procurement process.
Biden's campaign said he also plans to create a tax credit for companies that invest in the U.S., such as by reopening closed manufacturing plants or returning production from overseas.
Polls show Biden narrowly ahead of Trump in Michigan, the hub of U.S. auto manufacturing.
After suspending his television advertising in the state during the summer, Trump resumed this week with an ad trumpeting what he called the "Great American Comeback," saying the American economy is on the way back in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Ad trackers say Biden is outspending Trump on the airwaves in Michigan.
Trump visited two other battleground states on Tuesday — Florida, where he extended an offshore drilling ban, and North Carolina, where several thousand supporters gathered in an airport hangar to hear him criticize Biden. Few of the people attending the rally adhered to health experts' advice to wear face masks or remain 2 meters apart.
