9621 Agnes Crossing, Lake Suzanneview, New Mexico Island 84604-9295.
Empty eight-lane highways connecting vast vacant lots, a never-used power plant, and various buildings of dubious utility. Five years after the then President Donald Trump Billed as the
Empty eight-lane highways connecting vast vacant lots, a never-used power plant, and various buildings of dubious utility. Five years after the then President Donald Trump Billed as the “eighth wonder of the world,” Taiwan’s Foxconn project in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, is far from this “imaginary madness.”
Here is how Kelly Gallagher, a resident of the municipality and one of the most critical parties to the project, describes it. Imaginary, because right from the start, “it was too good to be true,” he says. EFE in an interview at his home in this city of 45,000 in Racine County.
In November 2017, the administration of the then Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walkerapproved an agreement with the Taiwanese company Foxconn, known for the production of iPhone, to build a plant for the production of modern television screens.
Foxconn it will receive subsidies for fifteen years through tax breaks in exchange for a $10 billion investment in a factory complex that will employ 13,000 people by 2022.
In June 2018, then President Trump (2017-2021) described it as “the eighth wonder of the worldwhen he appeared with the authorities and company founder Terry Gow on the ground to throw the symbolic first shovel of the earth.
In previous months, Gallagher recalls, they had heard that the building “would be huge, three times the size of the Pentagon.”
There were a lot of red flags, says a retired art teacher: “We realized that creating giant screens in Wisconsin It didn’t make sense because it would be too expensive.”
Everything happened very quickly. “It took them longer to approve the construction of a car wash in the city than the entire Foxconn project,” he says.
And it had to deeply affect the community because they wanted 12 square kilometers of land.
Soon letters began to arrive. expropriation neighbors, including Kim Mahoney. He had just built his house and wrote down the date October 7, the day he was informed that his house would be purchased for the construction of a highway.
At first she refused, and they threatened to leave her isolated, “like on an island,” she says. EFE aboard his car, looking around: “There was my house,” he points to the horizon, where there is only a field.
Today image in Mount Pleasant far from what was promised. “They have some kind of building, a small assembly plant, but this is one-twentieth of what was planned. There’s a lot of empty land, eight-lane highways leading to nowhere,” and a huge power plant that’s not working, Gallagher says.
He building The most symbolic is the temple in the form of a crystal ball, which is called the “factory” and which today is used as a warehouse.
“From the very beginning they were selling us history, but it was fiction. Our local officials and many business leaders have benefited financially,” he says.
What is the social cost of the entire project? $209 million for land acquisition (about 100 houses were expropriated), $12 million for construction roads, 185 for water and sewer… That’s a total of 912 million, according to a document provided to EFE by Mount Pleasant City Council.
But in an email interview, the mayor’s source said “ultimately the long-term net cost to local governments is zero” as all the money would be returned.
Gallagher doubts this, because he sees “great potential for disaster.”
Of the 10 billion dollars that Taiwanese companywho declined to comment EFEonly 750 invested.
Last April, Microsoft agreed to buy the site for $50 million to build a data center.
“That’s good news, but to recoup the investment,” Gallagher says, “it would take 100 Microsoft companies.”
According to Kathleen Dolan, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, the Foxconn project was “a complete failure.” political“.
It was for Trump who wanted to market himself as employment generator, in a key state in the presidential election. Moreover, any attempt to strengthen ties with Taiwan was a direct insult to its great enemy, China.
And also for Walker, who ran for election, and even for Gou, the Taiwanese billionaire founder of the company, who at the time wanted to run for president of the island.
This photo suited him: he stepped on the ground and shook hands with Trump to sell his excellent relationship with Trump. USA.
According to Dolan, although Trump is closely associated with this case, the “Wisconsin Republican Party and Walker” were primarily responsible for the debacle.
“And we saw that Republican Party He suffered little to no real impact,” the professor said hours before the first Republican debate in Milwaukee last Wednesday.
Republicans have put everything on the grill in this hinged state and will also hold their convention there in July, which will confirm the presidential candidate. To this day, Trump is the favorite despite facing four criminal charges.
EFE
Source: Aristegui Noticias
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