HARRISON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — President Donald Trump arrived late Tuesday afternoon at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, where he's scheduled to meet with troops and leaders at the Macomb County base.

Trump is expected to be joined by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Michigan officials, some of whom are hoping the Republican president might announce a new fighter mission to replace the aging A-10 fighter aircraft at Selfridge.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II is being divested by the Air Force and those jets at Selfridge are set to start being retired next year, leading to expected job losses at the base located on Lake St. Clair northeast of Detroit.

The new announcement, if it comes to fruition, would be a significant boon to the broader Selfridge community in Harrison Township and state officials and lawmakers who have lobbied Pentagon and Air Force officials for years for a new fighter mission for the base, knowing that the legacy A-10 aircraft's retirement could endanger the base's future.

The A-10 mission is the backbone of the Harrison Township base, which marks its 108th anniversary this year and supports an estimated 5,000 jobs in the community and an $800 million annual economic impact in the community, according to state figures.

"We have been advocating for this for a long time, and President Biden basically told us, 'No way. It wasn't going to happen,'" said former U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, a Republican who represented the Selfridge base for 14 years in Congress and is now the honorary base commander.

"And now we have a chance to have this happen for this administration, so it is obviously incredibly exciting."

Whitmer has repeatedly lobbied for a new fighter mission for Selfridge in meetings with Trump and members of his administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The A-10 retirement process is expected to occur incrementally through 2029 and result in the net loss of approximately 300 part-time personnel positions and about 25 full-time jobs, the Air Force has said.

That is accounting for jobs that will be coming to Selfridge with the addition a new squadron of 12 KC-46A Pegasus refueling tankers that the Air Force announced last year after heavy lobbying by the Michigan delegation led by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township. That was another big get for Michigan, which competed among 10 states for two future KC-46 squadrons, Peters told The Detroit News at the time.

Selfridge, as recently as 2023, had been passed over as a base for the Air Force's international training center for the F-35 fighter aircraft, and was one of just two Air National Guard bases in the country without a recapitalization plan for their A-10s. The other is in Maryland, where the first A-10 was sent to the Air Force's boneyard in Arizona in late March.

Lawmakers and officials have also discussed the next-generation crewless or unmanned "collaborative" aircraft (CCA) that the Air Force is acquiring is a possibility for Selfridge and hypersonics testing.

Peters and Elissa Slotkin — both of whom sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee — emphasized in a Monday letter to Trump the bipartisan support in Michigan's congressional delegation and among state and local leaders for Selfridge. They also touted Detroit's nickname as the “Arsenal of Democracy” for its role in producing tanks, airplanes and equipment for World War II.

"Selfridge is the ideal location for a future fighter mission with the experienced pilots, crews and maintainers, access to world-class exercises and training ranges with state-of-the-art infrastructure," the senators wrote.

"Your announcement is an important step towards realizing our long-held goal, and we are ready to work with you, the Department of Defense and the Air Force to identify and base a new advanced fighter mission at Selfridge."

Whitmer previously pledged $100 million in state money to infrastructure improvements at Selfridge to try to attract another fighter mission to the base. The state Legislature has allocated approximately $28 million in funding for updates at the base in recent years, and a panel of the state Senate approved an additional $26 million last week.

Two capital projects in the works at Selfridge include reconfiguring the runway and constructing a 41,600-square-foot hangar and maintenance facilities to accommodate larger fighter aircraft. The National Guard has been working through the pre-construction phases of design, environmental study and land acquisition, officials have said, using prior year funds appropriated by the Legislature.

The intent of reconfiguring the runway is to shift it to the north, away from a "safety zone" of residential homes along the Clinton River south of the base, for which the Air Force has granted waivers over the years, state Sen. Kevin Hertel has said.

State officials suspect the safety zone conflict is part of the reason that Selfridge was passed over by the Air Force after competing for an international training center for the F-35 fighter aircraft a few years ago.

Just last year, then-secretary of the U.S. Air Force Frank Kendall under President Joe Biden said Selfridge would "potentially" be considered for a future fighter mission to replace the base's A-10 aircraft, "but at the current time we don't have an option to do that."

Kendall at the time noted the decision announced a year ago to base the new squadron of 12 KC-46A Pegasus refueling tankers at the Selfridge base was in part because of the planned divestiture of the A-10 fighters. Selfridge is home to eight aging KC-135 Stratotankers, which are also slated to be retired.

The Air Force in January 2024 said Selfridge is the "preferred location" to host the KC-46A squadron, pending the results of a planned environmental impact analysis. The KC-46As are projected to start arriving in 2029.

Selfridge is also home to the Department of Homeland Security’s new Northern Border Mission Center. Peters, the senator, said in January that the mission center will be responsible for coordinating DHS efforts to "secure the northern border from one sea to another." Peters secured $3 million for the new center in a government spending bill adopted last year.

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