Tudor Dixon speaking at Oakland County Republican Party's GOP gubernatorial debate on July 27, 2022 in Pontiac, Mich. (Screenshot from FOX 2 Detroit on YouTube)

Tudor Dixon often brings up her 15 years in steel manufacturing to back up her pledge to protect Michigan’s jobs from outsourcing. But the company she helped found deals exclusively in distributing imported materials from the Czech Republic and Italy.

Dixon, whom former President Donald Trump endorsed in Michigan’s GOP gubernatorial primary last Friday, founded Cornerstone Foundry Supply in 2015. Co-owned with her husband while she continued work in steel sales, the conservative commentator told Bridge Michigan in June that CFS sells parts and materials to foundries across the U.S.

But according to CFS’s own website, the company was originally founded exclusively to distribute refractory ceramic materials and molds made by SEEIF Ceramic a.s., a Czech refractory producer. SEEIF Ceramics’ four production plants are all in the Czech Republic, and the company has an active partnership to sell crucibles with German manufacturer Aug. Gundlach K.G.

CFS also created a partnership with Italian engineering company Vemek in 2017 to sell foundry materials, according to the CFS website.

The Dixon campaign says CFS is fulfilling a specialized distribution need in order to keep U.S. manufacturing competitive.

“These are highly specialized products of which there is very limited supply in the U.S. But these products are essential to U.S. manufacturers’ ability to produce steel castings and continue operating,” said James Blair, the chief strategist for the Dixon campaign. “Without them, many U.S. manufacturers would not be able to keep up with the demand for the products they make.”

Blair’s comments highlight the critical need of any and all manufacturing materials in the U.S., as the country trails China in machinery and equipment manufacturing, according to a 2021 report by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Much of CFS’s catalog features highly specialized, proprietary refractory materials and molds used in forges specific steel products. Ceramic is specifically used because of its high resistance to the extreme heat used in refractories and foundries.

However, just as the U.S. is the largest global importer of refractory ceramics, it is also the largest global exporter of those materials, according to the French economic institute Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales.

Although a secondary facet of her campaign (compared to her repeated calls to remove liberal “indoctrination” from schools), Dixon pledges to protect current Michigan jobs and create new, quality ones. In April, she tweeted that she understood “what it takes to protect & create good paying jobs” compared to current Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. And last month, she combined school reform and manufacturing jobs by tweeting, “Forging a family-friendly Michigan means Good Jobs, Better Schools, Safe Communities, and Affordable Energy.”

In polling, Dixon has been pulling away as the clear frontrunner for Tuesday’s primary elections. Polls by Emerson College and Mitchell Research conducted after Trump’s endorsement showed her at least 14 percentage points ahead of the next candidate, businessman Kevin Rinke. This is despite making controversial comments two weeks prior, where she said a hypothetical 14-year-old survivor of incestual rape was a “perfect example” to block abortion care for.