President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to cut a key manufacturing industry grant in Vice President, JD Vance’s home town of Middletown, Ohio, according to CNN.
The President is looking to slash a $500m grant from the Biden administration that was slated for Cleveland-Cliffs, a steel manufacturing giant in America’s rust belt.
The grant, according to the report, was meant to help the company upgrade its ageing blast furnaces, so they would be powered by hydrogen, natural gas and electricity instead of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.
Internal administration documents obtained by CNN reportedly lay out intentions to cut these grants, which would have created more than 100 permanent jobs and 1,200 construction jobs.
Sources told CNN that representatives from the Elon Musk headed “Department of Government Efficiency”; had been involved in deciding which funding programs to cut.
Marcy Kaptur, the Ohio representative, told CNN in a statement: “An unelected billionaire who made his vast fortune off government contracts should not be able to unilaterally stop these programs,”; referring to Musk, whose Doge has continuously cut funding and jobs across the federal government.
Having backed him to return as the President of the United States of America, Trump appointed Musk to lead the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, in efforts to curb federal spending.
