Roger Marshall

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall is back to touting Panasonic after previously criticizing the manufacturer following initial praise for the plant.

Marshall, R-Kansas, listed Panasonic among a handful of manufacturers while touting manufacturing in Kansas. His comments came in advance of Vice President JD Vance's May 18 speech in Kansas City, Missouri, touting President Donald Trump's manufacturing policy and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

What Roger Marshall said about Panasonic and manufacturing

"Big day for Kansas City," Marshall told talk radio host Pete Mundo. "Folks across the rest of the country need to understand Kansas City is more than barbecue and the Kansas City Chiefs. Over 100,000 people have jobs in the manufacturing industry in Kansas City, so it's a major manufacturing hub. Think about Garmin, Panasonic, GM, Ford — all those usual cast of characters."

He made similar comments to Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.

"We're here to trump the manufacturing jobs all across the state of Kansas," Marshall said. "I talked to especially the small manufacturers, their business is absolutely booming. Kansas City itself, home to over 100,000 manufacturing jobs. Think General Motors, think Ford, Panasonic has a big plant here as well, Garmin is up here."

What Roger Marshall has said in the past about Panasonic

Last summer, Marshall criticized Panasonic in a social media post.

"I've said from the beginning that this was going to be a boondoggle," Marshall said in that July 22 post on X. "EVs (especially the batteries) are terrible for the environment and are not economically viable without government giveaways. This plant will only result in higher utility costs for Kansans, and a huge bill of IOUs to Panasonic."

The senator wasn't publicly critical of Panasonic at the beginning.

"Great news today! Panasonic announced it chose Kansas as the location for a brand new battery plant," Marshall said in a since-deleted tweet after Panasonic made its announcement in July 2022. "Billions of dollars in investments and thousands of great jobs are on the way to Kansas!"

What senator's office says about Panasonic remarks

"Senator Marshall has and will always tout Kansas as one of the best places in the world to do business — we have the best workers in America," said Payton Fuller, a Marshall spokesperson, in a statement to The Capital-Journal. "So when he mentions Panasonic, that is in no way an endorsement of their business model, which relies on failed EV subsidies that have cost taxpayers and utility payers dearly."

Marshall's July 2025 post was in reference to a story from The Beacon about Panasonic scaling back production at its new factory while still getting all of its taxpayer incentives.

Panasonic built the $4 billion electric vehicle battery factory in De Soto with the help of a megadeal incentive package from the state government. Officials promised 4,000 direct jobs and as many as 4,000 indirect jobs.

But the state's portion of the subsidy deal does not actually require the company to create any number of jobs. As of the plant's grand opening in July 2025, only about 1,000 employees had been hired, according to the Kansas Department of Commerce. As of February, the employment was up to 1,400, KSHB reported.

Marshall previously raised concerns about the reliance on government Biden-era subsidies for green energy and spoke in favor of ending those tax credits in Trump's second term.

What KDOL and BLS data show about manufacturing jobs

The latest Kansas Department of Labor seasonally adjusted statistics show Kansas had about 173,000 manufacturing jobs as of March. That's about the same as when Trump took office in January 2025.

Over the past 15 years, manufacturing jobs peaked at about 176,000 in May 2024. In February 2008, in the early days of the Great Recession, Kansas had about 188,000 manufacturing jobs.

The latest seasonally adjusted data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports about 12.6 million manufacturing jobs nationwide as of April. That's down about 77,000 jobs from when Trump started his second term.

Over the past 15 years, manufacturing jobs nationwide peaked in January 2023 at about 12.9 million. The United States had about 13.7 million manufacturing jobs in February 2008.