At a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, President Donald Trump said Cleveland will host the US Submarine Component Repair Center, calling it "a big deal that everybody wanted." He described the facility as 46,000 square feet and said it "will manufacture, repair, maintain key parts for virtually all new and existing submarines."
Trump tied the award to a memorandum he signed in August instructing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to produce a plan within 90 days to stand up the center. The directive called for creating a facility "to receive new and refurbish old components and parts as required by the submarine repair industrial base."
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Trump's Cleveland news is landing in an economy people feel more than they cheer. With inflation still elevated, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates last month, and Trump has pressed for lower energy costs as conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have driven them higher. Pending US home sales have fallen to a 12-year trough as mortgage rates have climbed above 7%. Retail gasoline is squeezing consumers as well: prices were under $3 earlier this year, prior to Trump and Israel starting a war against Iran; this week, they are now above $4.35.
Republicans face a tough path to keep control of Congress, and Ohio is central to that fight. Trump's Youngstown stop followed a rally near Dayton earlier this month. Although he carried Ohio in each of his three presidential bids, this cycle the party is playing more defense.
Republican Senator Jon Husted faces a tough contest against former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, and the RealClearPolitics average of polls on Monday put Brown up by about three points. The Senate Majority PAC will put $7 million into Ohio after redirecting funds from a North Carolina Senate contest, in which the Democrat is now broadly expected to prevail and flip a GOP-held seat. The governor's race is tight too: Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a onetime 2024 rival turned Trump ally, is running against Democrat Amy Acton to succeed GOP Governor Mike DeWine.
Earlier Monday, the RealClearPolitics polling average had Acton ahead of Ramaswamy by nearly four points.
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