‘They waited for me, I came’: Trump rallies Ohio toxic train site

If Donald Trump pulls off a political comeback, it will have begun in regional Ohio, where a train derailment spewed chemicals into the environment.

Donald Trump speaks at the East Palestine Fire Department in East Palestine, Ohio. Picture: AFP.

If Donald Trump manages to pull off an unlikely political comeback, it will have begun in regional Ohio, where a devastating train derailment almost three weeks ago spewed toxic chemicals into the air and water, leaving a small community fearful for their health and furious with the allegedly tardy Biden administration response.

The former president, who announced his bid for the White House in November, visited East Palestine, Ohio – a town on the border with Pennsylvania – on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), seeking to contrast his concern for locals with Joe Biden’s visit to Ukraine, where the president announced US$500m in aid.

East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway on Monday said Mr Biden’s trip to Ukraine was the “biggest slap in the face”, reflecting an anger Republicans and Mr Trump have been eager to capitalise on in the early stages of the 2024 presidential election campaign.

“I sincerely hope that when your representatives and all of the politicians get here, including Biden, they get back from touring Ukraine, that he‘s got some money left over,” Mr Trump, flanked by Republican senator JD Vance, said at a press conference in the town of fewer than 5000 people.

“They waited for me, when I came, they came,” he added, signing autographs for fans and enjoying loud cheers of support from a community that voted heavily for Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

“Over the past few weeks the community has shown the tough and resilient heart of America,” Mr Trump said from a fire station after surveying the area and getting a briefing. He accused the Biden administration of “indifference and betrayal” and he called on the president to visit the site.

Under mounting public pressure Joe Biden’s Transport Minister, Pete Buttigieg, widely canvassed as a future Democrat contender for president, has planned to visit the town on Thursday, a day after Mr Trump, his department claiming in a statement the late visit was so it “wouldn’t detract from the emergency response efforts.”

“When I go, it will be about action on rail safety, like (making) sure that these kinds of things don’t happen in the future,” Mr Buttigieg told US ABC on Tuesday, around a month after the youthful transport secretary suffered criticism for the mass grounding of US commercial flights over a computer glitch.

Democrats have sought to blame Mr Trump for the derailment, after his administration didn’t proceed with an Obama-era proposal to mandate stronger brakes for trains, although the rule would not have applied to the Norfolk Southern train, fifty carriages of which derailed on February 3, spilling toxic vinyl chloride.

Authorities enacted a ‘controlled burn’ days later that created vast plumes of smoke and triggered an evacuation of hundreds of residents, who have since returned but complained of nausea, headaches and rashes, and who fear drinking the local water.

Ominous pictures of the toxic cloud ricocheted around social media, including in China where commentators including CCP officials mocked the US for allegedly lax environmental standards and insufficient compassion, calling the disaster “Ohio Chernobyl”.

The state’s Republican governor Mike DeWine and federal health authorities have determined the air and local water supply was safe to breathe and drink as residents returned, but lingering uncertainty, and a lack of economic support for a relatively poor community, left a bitter taste.

“There‘s so much uncertainty about it. And that really gets to me emotionally,” long term resident Carolyn Brown told Mr DeWine on Tuesday, according to ABC, as he and health authorities publicly drank the local water after setting up a special health clinic to reassure locals.

“You don‘t know who to trust, that’s a big part of it, the uncertainty, you don’t know if you’re going to have to move … We need to feel that we’re safe,” she said.

Mr Trump, whose third campaign for the White House got off to a rocky start last year, remained the most popular candidate among Republicans for the GOP’s 2024 nomination for president, according to a Morning Consult poll of more than 3000 Republican voters conducted last week.

Environmental activist and lawyer Erin Brockovich, who shot to fame after Julia Roberts played her in a 2000 Hollywood film, will hold a town hall event in the town on Friday to explain, she said on social media, the legal rights of local residents.