Mike Rogers, Abdul El-Sayed pitch competing economic visions

US Senate candidates Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed addressed Detroit-area business leaders Tuesday
The two candidates shared their views on tariffs, taxes, artificial intelligence and other economic issues
El-Sayed and Rogers will face off Wednesday in second and final debate of the general election cycle

DETROIT — Speaking to a crowd of Michigan business leaders, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers on Tuesday both advocated for a shift in approach to Canadian tariffs, though they diverged in their overall assessments of the Trump administration’s trade policy.

Rogers made waves earlier this month when he called for an end to the “tariff war” with Canada, backing off his longtime defense of President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy.

During a Detroit Economic Club forum on Tuesday, Rogers said he doesn’t think additional taxes on one of Michigan’s largest trading partners are helpful: “When they went to Canada, I thought that was not the right direction, and mainly because they didn’t account for how integrated we are in the automotive business,” he said.

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Trump first proposed broad tariffs on Canada in March 2025. He announced additional 50% tariffs on Canadian imports this summer, and those took effect in August after negotiations failed.

Rogers did not immediately oppose the Canadian tariffs and on Tuesday said other Trump administration tariffs have had a positive impact, citing recent manufacturing reshoring by the automotive industry, some of it in Michigan.

El-Sayed was more critical, arguing the federal strategy since Trump began his second term has been more about exerting power over other nations than it has about improving conditions for US workers.

“I’m not against tariffs per se, I’m just against dumb tariffs,” El-Sayed said, calling the Trump administration tariff policy “chaotic,” “hamfisted” and “self-serving.”

El-Sayed said he’d prefer to see a tariff approach that puts the US in a competitive position internationally, pitching the possibility of producing and subsidizing a low-cost electric vehicle that can compete with Chinese and Korean models while maintaining production of gas-powered engines.

The two US Senate candidates were both given separate platforms to share their economic visions at the Tuesday event, a day before they’re set to meet for a second and final debate.

El-Sayed billed himself as a capitalist who believes the United States is currently trapped in an oligopoly, arguing that his progressive platforms like Medicare for All, additional taxes on the wealthy and pro-labor policies would make the market more competitive and boost employers and employees alike.

Pointing to Michigan’s lackluster rankings on education and economic opportunity, Rogers pitched a framework of boosting skilled trades, keeping taxes low and prioritizing US energy sources to begin bringing down costs while boosting opportunity.

Artificial intelligence

El-Sayed, whose campaign has released several policy proposals on artificial intelligence, said he’s concerned AI companies “are about to open Pandora’s box” when it comes to automating much of the job market, data safety and environmental concerns about data centers.

He reiterated his calls for requiring a public ownership stake in AI companies, establishing a regulatory agency to oversee the development of AI models and expanding the list of banned AI activity.

Rogers said AI platforms “definitely need guardrails” and said establishing a national framework for AI regulation would be a top priority for him if elected.

Rogers also said he supports a “narrowly crafted” exemption to antitrust laws to allow AI companies to collaborate on safety measures.

Closing skills gap, housing affordability

Both candidates agreed that impediments to affordable housing were hampering economic growth and preventing people from moving to or staying in Michigan.

“I want to be a destination for future talent, I don’t just want to be a place that barely holds on to the kids that we grow here,” El-Sayed said, calling for down payment assistance programs and building “competitive hubs” of housing around small businesses to stimulate growth.

Rogers expanded on his campaign’s housing agenda, which involves loosening regulations, using land banks to address vacant lots, creating tax-free construction zones to encourage building in certain markets and adding the option of tax-free savings accounts for first-time homebuyers

Improving Michigan’s education system and increasing access to skilled trade training in schools would also go a long way toward improving Michigan’s economic stature, Rogers argued, calling skilled trades “a job China can’t steal, and … a job AI can’t replace.”

El-Sayed called for pro-labor legislation to “enable union organizing in every sector of American life,” arguing that doing so would better enable labor organizations to work in concert with the small business community. He also supports cutting the payroll tax and investing more in small business growth.

“Fighting for unions and also fighting for small businesses allows us to make sure that we’re building and creating and maneuvering more wealth in and around our communities, so that more people have more of the pie,” he said.

Taxes

Rogers told the business-friendly audience that he supports a lower tax rate for businesses to give them room to invest, while also bringing more certainty to the market.

He said he supports tax credits for research and development but argued the Green New Deal, which El-Sayed previously supported, would have required “the largest tax increase in the history of the country.”

El-Sayed used the forum to advocate for one of his signature policy platforms: taxing the wealthy, which he argued could be a good way to tackle the country’s debt burden and combat trends of cutting taxes for the richest while raising costs for others.

“Anytime somebody like me steps up and says, ‘I actually think we can have health care and good schools,’ they’re like… ‘What are we going to do about the national debt?,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe stop fighting wars we shouldn’t be fighting, and maybe we should tax the richest people.”

To do so would unlock “a lot of the latent economic opportunity that does not actually get manifested,” he said. “Right now we’re in a system where if you’re winning, you are absolutely winning. Nobody else gets the money.”