Leaders begin talks to restart U.S., regional economies

The heads of the four largest U.S. automakers have been named to a White House task force focused on restarting the economy.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump named several dozen business leaders to what he called the Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups.

Among them: General Motors’ Mary Barra, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Mike Manley, Ford Motor Co.’s Bill Ford Jr. and Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk.

There are a number of labor unions represented, but not the UAW.

Trump said he would be speaking to members of the task force by telephone in the coming weeks.

Regional plans

Meanwhile, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has talked with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker about forging a joint strategy for reopening the automotive-dominated Great Lakes regional economy when the threat of the coronavirus subsides, Crain's Detroit Business reported.

Pritzker has been talking with his peers in the Midwest about a coordinated approach to lifting shelter-in-place orders ahead of President Trump making a national move that may not reflect regional priorities, Crain's Chicago Business reported Tuesday. Crain's Detroit and Crain's Chicago are affiliates of Automotive News. 

Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois dominate the U.S. automotive industry with several assembly plants and thousands of parts suppliers, along with r&d and other logistical support operations. 

As many as 20 U.S. states could reopen on May 1, a top Trump administration official said Wednesday.

The Illinois governor and his chief of staff have talked with Whitmer and her chief of staff JoAnne Huls about a coordinated regional approach to reopening the economies they shut down in mid-March to mitigate spread of the coronavirus, two sources with knowledge of the discussions confirmed for Crain's Detroit Business.

"Governors that I've spoken with have been frankly very positive about this idea," Pritzker said Tuesday at his daily COVID-19 briefing, according to Chicago radio station WBBM. "They've all been thinking about it individually for their states and understand that speaking with a common voice might be a positive move."

Pritzker and his office did not name the governors he's been speaking with.

Coordination efforts

West Coast and Northeast states have jointly been working on plans for reopening their regional economies in a coordinated manner.

Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said Tuesday he has suggested to Whitmer that Michigan work in unison with border states such as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

"I think a lot of those conversations are happening," Ananich said during a telephone town hall meeting for Genesee County residents. "They're looking at best practices and how our states are very similar in some ways, how they're very different, what plans are in the works."

Whitmer has extended her stay-at-home order for nonessential workers, activities and travel through April 30.

With confirmed coronavirus cases leveling off in Michigan and some other states, Trump has displayed an eagerness to reopen the national economy that was largely halted by the actions of governors like Whitmer, Pritzker and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.

Fauci: 'Not there yet'

But the federal government's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, cautioned Tuesday that the U.S. does not yet have the critical testing and tracing procedures needed to begin reopening the nation's economy weeks after the fast-spreading coronavirus essentially halted it, adding a dose of caution to increasingly optimistic projections from the White House, the Associated Press reported.

"We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and we're not there yet," Fauci told the Associated Press.

Throughout the coronavirus crisis, Whitmer has repeatedly said she's in regular contact with Pritzker, DeWine, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, trading notes with the neighboring state governors on how to respond to various aspects of the public health threat.

20 states reopening?

Separately, governors of about 20 U.S. states spared the worst of the coronavirus pandemic may start reopening their economies by President Trump’s May 1 target date, a top U.S. health official said on Wednesday, as fresh data illustrated the economic and human toll brought by the crisis.

Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency was prepared to assist those states in the process of lifting restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of the virus.

“There are a number of states -- 19, 20 states -- that really have had limited impact from it. So I think we will see some states that are -- the governors feel that they’re ready -- we’re poised to assist them with that reopening,” Redfield said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.” 

States and local governments have issued “stay-at-home” or “shelter-in-place” orders affecting about 94 percent of Americans to curb the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

The restrictions have battered the U.S. economy, with mandatory business closures aimed at curbing the pathogen’s spread leaving millions of Americans unemployed. With evidence that the outbreak is slowing in hard-hit states like New York, political leaders have engaged in an acrimonious debate over when to try to reopen the economy without paving the way for a deadly second wave of infections.

Fresh government data released on Wednesday gave another glimpse at the economic damage. Retail sales dropped by 8.7 percent in March, the government reported, the biggest decline since tracking began in 1992. 

Reuters contributed to this report.