Trump highlights a big new defense project in Maryland, a blue state whose governor won’t be there

BALTIMORE (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday plans to highlight a $3.7 billion investment by the military technology company Anduril to build components for nuclear-powered submarines at a Baltimore-area shipyard.

It’s one of a series of events Trump is holding across the country to showcase investments in factories, as high gasoline prices from the Iran war and persistently elevated inflation have damaged the president’s approval ratings on the economy. The president is trying to rally Republican voters with less than a month before the midterm elections on Nov. 3.

This event, though, is in the solidly blue state of Maryland — and Democratic Gov. Wes Moore won’t be there. The feud threatened to overshadow the announcement.

Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the governor, said Moore was blocked from speaking at the event. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, said Moore had been invited to attend the event — as a guest. Moore, who is seeking reelection, is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2028.

Moore in a statement said the project could potentially create “the most jobs in Maryland in history.” The new facility is expected to create 3,100 direct jobs with several thousand more indirect jobs being supported.

“Governor Moore has always said he will work with anyone when it comes to delivering for Marylanders but bow to no one when it comes to standing up for them,” Moussa said.

Moore’s speaking slot aside, Marlon Humphrey, a star cornerback for the Baltimore Ravens, was among those invited to celebrate the announcement with Trump. The president plans to attend Saturday’s big college football matchup between Alabama and Georgia, after attending Texas at Tennessee late last month.

The $3.7 billion covers “the cost of standing up the facility, building the workforce, filling it with modern technology and other capabilities required to do the work that we will be tasked with,” Chris Brose, Anduril’s president and chief strategy officer, said on a conference call with reporters organized by the White House.

Administration officials on the call said he government would commit $2.9 billion to the project by purchasing what the factory in Baltimore County, Maryland, produces. The Trump administration is trying to revive America’s shipbuilding capabilities for national security and economic reasons.

The site at Sparrows Point, Maryland, formerly housed a steel mill for Bethlehem Steel that closed in 2012.

Brose said Anduril would take advantage of “manufacturing revolutions” in the aerospace and other sectors, along with software, to change how factory production would occur.

The U.S. has 26 Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines and expects to add two more to its fleet in the spring, according to an official on the call. That official spoke anonymously as a condition set by the White House.

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AP writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.