Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Speaks At Groundbreaking For Arkansas Aluminum Site

4/7/2025

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a new Taber Extrusions facility in Russellville, Arkansas.

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Transcript

00:00excited for this day and what this will mean for the entire community and the entire state.

00:06Before I get into today's announcement, I'd like to give a quick update on this weekend's storms

00:12and the generational flooding that has impacted nearly every corner of Arkansas. Just a few

00:19minutes ago, I was in Hardy, Arkansas, one of the hardest hit communities in the state. I had

00:25the opportunity to meet with local and state officials and survey the extensive damage.

00:31We're thankful that President Trump approved Arkansas's emergency request over the weekend,

00:35which has freed up an enormous amount of federal resources that will be focused on rescue and

00:41recovery efforts. We are very grateful to the President for his quick action to help our state.

00:47It's going to take a long time to recover and rebuild from the damage that has occurred over

00:53the course of the last several weeks, but we are strong and I am confident and I know,

00:59especially after hearing some of the heroic stories that took place in Hardy,

01:05that Arkansas will come back and be even stronger and better than even before.

01:10But not all of the news of today is negative. We have some very exciting things that are happening

01:16in our state at the same time, and this event is a perfect example of one of the great things

01:22happening in Arkansas. I want to give a huge thank you to Michael Tang, Tabor's owner,

01:29who has done a tremendous job in helping bring this project and investment to the state.

01:34I also want to thank Chuck Stout, who we heard from earlier, who is Tabor's president

01:41and who's doing a great job and has been leading this effort. And to all of the local leadership,

01:46Mayor Teague, Judge Cross, and Dr. Selman with the Russellville Chamber,

01:50thank you for your hard work to secure this investment and to make this event possible.

01:55I have to admit, the last time that Tabor leadership and I were in the same room,

02:01to be honest, I wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders. I just landed in London for the

02:07Farmboro Air Show after a red-eye flight coming off of nearly a week at the Republican National

02:13Convention. If you've ever been to one of those or just watched it on TV, you might guess it's

02:18a lot of big speeches in late nights, so basically zero sleep. On top of that, this was happening in

02:25the midst of the CrowdStrike internet outages, so everyone's flights were messed up and delayed.

02:33We called the Atlanta airport home for the night before our flight, and half of our team never made

02:39it to the event because they didn't get out of Little Rock. But as much as we wanted to turn

02:43off the lights and head to sleep, we knew that we couldn't because we were announcing something

02:48really big for Arkansas at the air show. And not just for Tabor, not just for Russellville,

02:54but something for all of Arkansas and all of America. And today, we're here to break ground

03:00on a project that will bring 70 jobs and 60 million dollars of investment to the River Valley

03:07and further secure Arkansas's place as an aerospace and defense powerhouse.

03:13That last part is especially important because America's industrial base needs our help. We have

03:20long been proud to call ourselves the arsenal of democracy, and for a long time that was true.

03:27This is the country that churned out 300,000 planes and 86,000 tanks to defeat the Nazis

03:35and help win World War II. But in the years since, and especially in the past four years,

03:41we've let our defense industry stall. Defense employment has shrunk two-thirds since the 1980s,

03:48and in the past five years, more than 17,000 defense companies have gone out of business.

03:55At the same time, our adversaries have worked overtime to catch up. Communist China has more

04:01battleships than we do, and experts say that in a war with China, we would run out of ammo

04:07in three to four weeks. The good news is that our leaders in Washington are recognizing this crisis

04:15and stepping up to fix it. And the better news is that Arkansas and Tabor's expanded facility here

04:21in Russellville will be a big part of it. Tabor's products go into all sorts of items that are

04:27critical for our military, from ship hulls to aircraft hangars to firearms. It's no surprise

04:34that Tabor counts the Department of Defense as its number one customer. And this patriotic company

04:41is led with patriotic leadership, including Chuck Stout, who spent almost 10 years in the United

04:47States Navy. You all know better than anyone how important this investment is. It's so important,

04:54in fact, that they had an exhaustive search when deciding where to put it. And when they finally

04:59settled on Arkansas, they gave one reason of why they picked this location over every other one.

05:06And not to sound like a broken record, because I know it's been mentioned more than once,

05:10and we're going to keep mentioning it because it's the number one reason we continue to bring

05:15new jobs to our state. We have the best people that you will find anywhere in the country,

05:21and that is exactly what helped us win this project. We're patriots in the natural state,

05:28and we get that the only way that you have peace is through strength. Aerospace and defense is now

05:34our largest export industry, so there are plenty of workers who know their way around complicated

05:40military technology. But even bigger than that is the fact that Arkansas has made the necessary

05:46investments over the past few years to bring our education and our workforce into the 21st century

05:53economy. With LEARNS, we've raised teacher pay, expanded career training, and put our focus on

05:59the basics, literacy and mathematics, so every student graduates high school ready to enter

06:06and have a great career. And now, with a new law called Arkansas Access, we've put focus on higher

06:13education. Every Arkansan will be able to go to a great institution like Arkansas Tech or UA

06:21graduate with a real-world degree that they can actually use and come and start a career at a

06:28business just like Tabor. Workforce and education are why Tabor is investing so much in our state,

06:35and frankly, it's why our future is incredibly bright. Thank you again to the local leaders who

06:41did so much to help attract this new investment to Russellville, and thank you to Tabor's leadership

06:47for their outstanding contributions to our state and to our country. And I want to thank Clint and

06:53our team at ADDC for their leadership and the amazing job that they're doing helping us continue

06:58to grow Arkansas's economy. For the second quarter in a row, Arkansas is the number one state in the

07:06country for economic growth, and that's for great leadership and great people like we are celebrating

07:12here today in Russellville. So thank you so much for all you're doing, and what a great day. Thank

07:16you again, Mr. Tang.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Speaks At Groundbreaking For Arkansas Aluminum Site

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