Kathleen Gray, and John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press

Calling Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a candidate from the past who will merely continue the policies that have destroyed cities like Detroit, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told a business crowd in Detroit that he is the best agent for change in America.

“The city of Detroit is where our story begins. Detroit was once the economic envy of the world,” he said. “When we were governed by the America-First policy, Detroit was absolutely booming. … But for many living in this city, that dream has long ago vanished. When we abandoned the policy of America first, we started rebuilding other countries instead of our own. The skyscrapers went up in Beijing while factories and neighborhoods crumbled right here in Detroit.”

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While Trump’s speech was billed as his economic vision for the country, he spent a large amount of his nearly hour-long speech to 1,500 people at the Detroit Economic Club, lashing out against Clinton.

The Democratic party has reached into the past to select “a nominee from yesterday, who offers the rhetoric of yesterday and the policies of yesterday. There will be no change under Hillary Clinton, only four more years of weakness and President Obama,” Trump said. “We’ll be looking boldly into the future. That is what our country deserves.

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“American cars will travel the roads, American planes will connect our cities and American ships will patrol the seas. American steel will send new skyscrapers soaring all over our country,” he added.

Trump offered glimpses of his economic plan, adding that he will roll out more details in the coming weeks. Among the policy proposals he outlined was a plan to reduce the number of income tax brackets from seven to three and eliminate income taxes for individuals who earn less than $25,000 or $50,000 for married couples.

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Other items on Trump's agenda:

Ending the estate tax and reducing the corporate tax rates from 35% to 15%.

Make all child care expenses tax deductible.

Impose a temporary moratorium on new regulations on business.

Remove civil service bureaucrats from federal government and replace them with business experts.

Review and repeal many regulations, including the Environmental Protection Agency's rules surrounding the clean power plan and water regulations and the Department of the Interior's moratorium on coal mining permits.

Renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and withdraw from the Trans Pacific Parntership trade agreement. Trump also has said that he would impose tariffs on domestic automakers that move manufacturing facilities out of the U.S.

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He hammered Clinton for her support for NAFTA and predicted that she will approve the Trans Pacific Partnership if she's elected. Clinton has said she opposes the TPP and is willing to renegotiate NAFTA.

"A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for TPP and NAFTA. Before NAFTA went into effect, there were 285,000 autoworkers in Michigan. Today that number is only 160,000," Trump said. "Detroit is still waiting for Hillary Clinton’s apology. She’s been a disaster. I expect Detroit will get that apology right around the same time Hillary Clinton turns over those 33,000 e-mails she deleted."

It was a message geared toward the blue collar workers who have either lost their jobs or have seen stagnant wages for years. These are the voters in Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, that Trump is counting on to provide his path to the presidency.

Trump’s speech offered a bleak vision of the American economy at odds with the nation’s low unemployment and slow but steady economic growth. Trump instead painted a portrait of America as a place with rising unemployment, deepening poverty and economic weakness. His was a view of America as a patsy to China and other nations.

But Trump offered so many policy bullet points in such rapid-fire succession that he didn’t concentrate on any to great length or explain in detail how he would pay for them. He called for increased child-care benefits virtually in the same breath as extolling law and order, or veterans benefits while bashing NATO allies.

His vision of Detroit as a place that boomed during some past “America First” period but suffered under Democractic policies was at odds with what many historians say happened to the city. In fact, Detroit began to lose population as far back as the 1950s, an out-flow due to suburbanization and the loss of factory jobs that long preceded the passage of trade deals like NAFTA that Trump bashed.

His plan comes on the heels of the appointment of a new economic policy team last week, made up of 13 men, including hedge fund managers, real estate developers and other businessmen.

Charles Ballard, a professor of economics at Michigan State University, took issue with Trump’s assertions that he could enact massive tax cuts yet still rebuild America’s deteriorating roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

“Any way you look at it, it adds up as either a big increase in deficits or you’ve got to make huge cuts to stuff like Social Security and Medicare or defense,” he said, adding that Trump misused economic data, such as when he cited millions of people dropping out of the labor market. “There has been a decrease in labor force participation but a lot of it is baby boomers retiring. So would his policies bring the baby boomers back to work?”

Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, said that as long as Trump stays on message, he'll be competitive in the state.

"He’s got to stay on message and stick with the things that got him the nomination: the economy and jobs. Those are the things that people look to him as being a change agent," she said, noting that polling in the race doesn't favor her preferred candidate. "Polling is a snapshot of what’s happening and coming out the Democratic convention, we expected Hillary to get a bounce. She got a little bigger bounce than we expected. He had a rough week and the polls reflected. A lot of voters don’t make up their mind until the final days of the election "

George Kullis of Holly, a Trump supporter who came as a guest to the event Monday, said, “If he can deliver that the next three months, if he can be presidential like that, it’s a landslide. That was so inspirational.”

Kelly Rossman McKinney, co-owner of the Lansing-based Truscott Rossman consulting firm, said she was surprised that Trump didn't get rattled by the 14 hecklers who periodically interrupted his speech before being escorted out. Another couple hundred people gathered outside of Cobo Center to protest Trump's visit.

"It was more presidential than most of the presentations he’s been known for. He looked and sounded presidential," said Rossman McKinney, an "unabashed" supporter of Clinton. "But there were some things that he did and said that were disappointing to a Detroit audience — not acknowledging Detroit's comeback and what’s happened to the automotive industry, but that would have been acknowledging that President Obama’s policies have actually worked for Detroit. To make Detroit sound like such an abysmal place when we’re you’re speaking to the host city today probably wasn’t the best move."

On Thursday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will offer her vision for creating jobs in the U.S. through investing in the country’s infrastructure and manufacturing communities.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430 or kgray99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @michpoligal.