Moore, Trump clash over credit for major Baltimore County jobs project during presidential visit

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said his team has been working for months to bring a major economic development project to Sparrows Point, but claimed he was shut out of speaking at the event where President Trump took center stage. 

Maryland commerce officials said the Anduril Industries development is the biggest private-sector job announcement in the state in more than a decade. 

Mr. Trump touted the area's history as a manufacturing hub while speaking in Baltimore County on Tuesday.

What is the project bringing in new jobs?

Mr. Trump supporters lined Bethlehem Boulevard hoping to get a glimpse of the president's motorcade before he spoke at Tradepoint Atlantic Tuesday afternoon. 

Anduril Industries announced they are building what is called Arsenal 2, a $3.7 billion project in Baltimore County that is expected to generate more than 3,100 new jobs and support more than 14,000 existing jobs. It is expected to get tax subsidies. 

The development is the largest job-creation project in Maryland in more than ten years and will build components of nuclear submarines and support the Navy's mission. 

Arsenal 1, a similar project, is already under construction in Ohio.

"Today, we're officially announcing the construction of the largest new shipyard in the United States. Since World War II, there's been nothing like what we're doing today," Mr. Trump said at the event. "The workers of Baltimore and the shipyard here at Sparrows Point have been a vital part of the American industrial strength for literally over 100 years."

It comes at a time when more than half of Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump's handling of the economy and Republicans are facing tough midterm elections. 

Moore says he was silenced 

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said his team worked to secure the deal with Anduril, but he was blocked from speaking at Trump's appearance. 

"This was a deal that we helped bring. This is going to be the largest private investment that we have seen in over a decade inside of the state of Maryland. It's bringing 3,100 jobs. We are very proud of the fact that we have been working with them for over a year to bring them on board, and we're excited about what it's going to mean to the area," Moore said. "But if the President of the United States wants to bring the circus into town and tell me that I'm not allowed to speak to the fact that we were the ones who helped bring the deal, then I will let the circus be conducted while I go back to the work of the people of Maryland."

The governor also posted a video to X stating, "We just closed a deal with Anduril."

Moore touted other economic deals during his time in office that he said totaled more than $17 billion in private investment, including projects with AstraZeneca, National Harbor's Sphere and Samsung Biologics.

Trump's Baltimore County support 

At Dundalk's Boulevard Diner, a lot has changed since people lined the streets to see Mr. Trump when he visited here two months before he was first elected president in 2016.

He sat at a corner booth dining on hamburgers and crab cakes with adviser Rudy Giuliani and former Maryland Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich.

Regular customer David Keltz told WJZ he likes to sit at Mr. Trump's former booth and is excited about the new jobs. 

"Americans are getting jobs. That's great. I'm really pleased that a lot of industry is coming back here to America and not going out there to other countries. Who could object to that?" Keltz said. "…This is an area of the city where people are proud of America I think, and I am happy he wants to make America great again."

A few tables away, Carl Kuleck is skeptical. 

"It's positive, but how many of those jobs are actually production jobs rather than warehouse jobs," he said. "We have enough Amazons around Baltimore, which pay OK, but they're not the manufacturing sector." 

Kuleck told WJZ it is getting tougher for some to make ends meet.

"You need to make $100,000 a year if you want to buy a house, and there aren't too many jobs paying you $100,000," he said. "You've got people who can't afford housing, so how will they afford anything else?"

Outside the event, protesters with the People s Power Assembly chanted, "No to Trump." The organization told WJZ, "This is not only a dangerous development for the people of the United States—as federal dollars drain out of vital and life-saving services and into the Pentagon—but to people all over the world who stand to become targets of AI-driven weapons."

Bethlehem Steel transformed 

The new development further transforms Sparrows Point, which was once an economic engine for Baltimore County with Bethlehem Steel. The area saw its economic fortunes fall and in recent years has rebounded with a hotbed of new investment.

Mr. Trump said he was impressed when he saw the site from the air. 

"I said that's a nice piece of real estate, and it's big. This is gonna be some big yard," the president said. 

He appeared in good spirits and danced to YMCA, which has been a campaign anthem for him, before departing.