Biden hits and misses with Trump and Foxconn claims

As the presidential race rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump heats up, the Biden campaign is tying Trump to Wisconsin’s infamous Foxconn deal.

"The Trump administration handed out taxpayer dollars to a foreign company. Hundreds of homes and farms were bulldozed, and over $500 million in taxpayer dollars were wasted preparing for Foxconn," the Biden-Harris campaign said in a May 16 news release.

The statement was made a little more than a week after Biden was at Gateway Technical College’s Integrated Manufacturing and Engineering Technology Center in Racine County, along with Microsoft President Brad Smith and Gov. Tony Evers to announce a $3.3 billion Microsoft data center. 

Biden, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, said the Microsoft Corp. development is a "comeback story," playing out across Wisconsin and the nation. The president said the Microsoft plan stands in contrast to the 2017 efforts of Trump and state Republican officials that brought bring Foxconn to Mount Pleasant. 

Microsoft is building its data center on land that Foxconn was initially expected to use for a $10 billion LCD manufacturing plant that Trump touted as the "eighth wonder of the world." But the investment did not fully happen and neither did the 13,000 jobs Foxconn initially promised.

"Foxconn turned out to be just that," Biden said at Gateway. "A con."

When we asked the Biden campaign to back up the claim, the campaign essentially restated what was originally said. That’s rhetoric, not evidence. Since so much has been written about Foxconn, we started with reports and news accounts.

The answer to this is a swift "no." 

The original 2017 Foxconn deal called for Wisconsin to provide the company with nearly $3 billion in tax credits if it created 13,000 jobs at a $10 billion state-of-the-art factory for producing liquid crystal displays — flat screens used in televisions and other electronics.

However, the company scaled back its plans and under Evers, the incentive package was changed to reflect the smaller scope. In 2021, the tax credits were slashed from $2.85 billion to $80 million. The job benchmark fell from 13,000 statewide to 1,454.  And the number for Foxconn’s capital investment went from $10 billion to $672.8 million. 

In any case, it was state money — not federal money — that was granted to the company.

However, then-President Trump was certainly center stage in June 2018, along with then-Gov. Scott Walker, then-U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Foxconn Chair Terry Gou, all wielding gold-colored shovels at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Foxconn Technology Group facility in Mount Pleasant. Were "hundreds of homes and farms" bulldozed?

Although hundreds of residents were moved out to clear the way for the Foxconn campus, the number of homes and farms has been variously put at between 100 and 132 by different media reports. 

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A Mount Pleasant village spokesperson said officials worked to secure voluntary agreements with owners of about 130 parcels. But other owners said the village threatened eminent domain, claiming their properties were needed for road improvements.  

According to a 2019 report, the Village of Mount Pleasant by June of that year had paid just over $152 million for 132 properties to clear the way for Foxconn, plus an additional $7.9 million in relocation costs, according to village records obtained by Wisconsin Public Radio and analyzed by Wisconsin Watch. 

So, the claim’s second part is somewhat off the mark, in that it referred to homes being bulldozed, when it would have been more accurate to say hundreds of residents relocated.

When the Biden campaign responded to us, their quote cited "hundreds of residents," not homes.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin taxpayers were on the hook for at least $583 million preparing for the Foxconn project.

If you add in the $257 million from the pockets of American Transmission Company’s Wisconsin electric ratepayers — for new lines and a substation — the total rises to $840 million. But was that money wasted? 

Mount Pleasant Community Development Director Sam Schultz said the village's investment in the industrial park, when it was created for Foxconn, helped attract Microsoft and made it possible to move quickly after the company began to buy land, according to a May 14 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article.

"We benefited from the work that had been done before, the ability to start to acquire large amounts of land and things like a (electrical) substation that exists there already," he said. 

So, saying that "$500 million in taxpayer dollars were wasted preparing for Foxconn" is a bit muddy at best.

Biden claimed "The Trump administration handed out taxpayer dollars to a foreign company. Hundreds of homes and farms were bulldozed, and over $500 million in taxpayer dollars were wasted preparing for Foxconn." 

The claim’s first part is off. The Trump administration didn’t pay — state and local taxpayers did. The second part is an overreach — in terms of houses, the number is between 100 and 130, though there may have been hundreds of residents living in those homes. 

Finally, although it’s true that more than $500 million was spent on preparing for Foxconn, local officials say the preparation that went into Foxconn is now being put to use for the Microsoft development. 

Our definition of Half True is a statement that is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. 

That fits here.