WAPAKONETA, Ohio — Echoing remarks President Trump made during his last visit to an Ohio factory, an Australian billionaire said his investment here would not have been possible without Mr. Trump at the nation’s helm.
“Mr. President, if it weren’t for your presidency, this mill would not be here today,” said Anthony Pratt, executive chairman of Pratt Industries, at his company’s new paper mill in a small Ohio city best known for being the birthplace of astronaut Neil Armstrong.
The uncharacteristically short, 20-minute program featured Mr. Trump alongside Mr. Pratt and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, all standing before U.S. and Australian flags and giant rolls of paper used to make the corrugated boxes for which Pratt Industries is known.
At the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Mr. Trump took credit for reviving the nation’s last Army tank plant with Pentagon spending to boost production of the Abrams battle tank.
“If it weren’t for me, this place would be closed,” Mr. Trump told a crowd there in March.
Mr. Trump’s latest trip to Ohio was meant to highlight an Australian-owned business with that nation’s prime minister in tow, and to tout the investment by Mr. Pratt, a Trump supporter and the richest man in Australia, in an electorally important region.
“I’ll tell you about Anthony, he’s the most successful man in Australia,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s my friend and I appreciate it.”
The President called Mr. Morrison a great friend and ally, and cited the surprise victory earlier this year that secured the conservative prime minister a full term.
“It was supposed to be close but they blew him away,” Mr. Trump said.
Pratt Industries has made a $500 million investment in Wapakoneta as part of a pledge Mr. Pratt made in 2017 to invest $2 billion in the Midwest if Mr. Trump were elected.
The President’s visit marked the grand opening of Pratt’s Ohio paper mill. The Georgia-based company, which exclusively manufactures recycled paper, broke ground here in 2018. The second phase of its project, a corrugated box factory, is expected to open in March 2020. Both facilities will employ more than 300 workers and produce 300 million boxes per year.
“We’re really proud of our asset here, and we want to show it off to the world,” said Jay Hennessey, a 56-year-old employee who has helped launch and educate workers at several Pratt plants in the U.S. “Then we’re going to do it again and again and again.”
Pratt workers, scattered in the crowd and dressed in neon orange shirts, said attendance at the rally was not mandatory.
“It’s a big deal,” Jonathon Gay, a 28-year-old production engineer at Pratt, said of the President’s visit, declining to get into politics.
The event ended a weekend that saw Mr. Trump delivering and receiving accolades from world leaders on U.S. soil, beginning on Friday when he hosted Mr. Morrison at a White House State Dinner.
Mr. Trump spent the earlier part of Sunday at a rally in Houston with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that drew a crowd of 50,000 to the city’s NRG Stadium. Mr. Modi touted the relationship between the two countries.
“You have never had a better friend as president than President Donald Trump,” Mr. Modi said.
More than 1,000 people were transported to Pratt’s sprawling campus via yellow school bus from a local high school, then waited four hours in an unconditioned warehouse for the program to begin.
The backdrop — a new or reemerging factory in the industrial heartland — is a favorite setting for Mr. Trump to rally his supporters.
And the White House found an approving audience in Wapakoneta. In ruby-red Auglaize County, 80 percent of voters supported Mr. Trump in 2016. But Mr. Trump will still need to energize his base in places like western Ohio to potentially offset what the midterms demonstrated was softening Republican support in suburbs nationwide.
“This is a classic Midwest town, that typical Republican town,” said Bill Sammons, a 52-year-old public school teacher in Wapakoneta.
Before Mr. Trump’s visit, the Ohio Democratic Party sought to draw attention to General Motors’ Lordstown closure and farmers hurt by Mr. Trump’s trade war in China.
“While Trump is here, he won’t be meeting with the Ohioans who have been hurt by his terrible policies. He won’t be meeting with the former workers of GM Lordstown and members of that community, which is really struggling since the closure of that factory and the loss of thousands of jobs. He won’t be meeting with Ohio farmers, who are getting absolutely crushed by his disastrous trade war with China,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said.
Democrats’ next presidential primary debate is being held Oct. 15 and possibly 16 at Otterbein University in Westerville.
First Published September 22, 2019, 11:34 p.m.
