LORDSTOWN — President Donald Trump’s budget proposal guts a loan program that Lordstown Motors Corp. could use to seek millions in help to repurpose the former General Motors Lordstown plant into a maker of electric trucks.

In a summary of the budget for the coming fiscal year that starts in October, the administration said Monday it wants to eliminate the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program, which was created in 2008 to foster development of fuel-efficient vehicles.

It called the loan program and other funding programs “costly, wasteful or duplicative.”

Lordstown Motors, a new venture that’s trying to reopen the facility to make the battery-powered Endurance fleet-style pickup truck, is considering asking for $200 million from the loan fund.

It’s also getting a $40 million loan from GM that was part of the purchase agreement. Structuring it that way let Lordstown Motors take possession of the Lordstown plant and work toward a late 2020 vehicle launch while still raising money to operate.

But it’s not clear just yet whether the loan program’s demise would cut off money for Lordstown Motors. Just over seven months remain in the budget year, and the program still has more than $9 billion available to loan, according to the website for the U.S. Department of Energy, which runs the program.

Lordstown Motors said Monday that is has not yet applied for the loan and that it is just one of several financing options under review.

“We will factor this new information into our decision-making process, but our business model stands on its own without it,” the company said in a statement.

Messages were left Monday seeking comment from the Energy Department.

Eliminating the program could be problematic for the president, who campaigned on bringing back manufacturing jobs to Ohio, a key state in his re-election campaign. Trump lambasted GM for plans to close the Lordstown plant and then praised the new electric-truck venture.

According to a summary of Trump’s budget plan, the administration wants to eliminate the loan program and others because the private sector should have a primary role in taking risks on new commercial projects.

“The government’s best use of taxpayer funding is in earlier-stage” research and development, the document states.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Howland, who has been helping Lordstown Motors with the loan application, said he plans to talk with the Trump administration and is optimistic there is a way to make sure the money is available.

“I can’t see why they wouldn’t want to be a part of this,” Ryan said Monday. “It would be something we could work on together, and at the end of the day this will lead to jobs with good wages and benefits.”

These types of public-private partnerships, he said, are needed to help create a new manufacturing economy and rebuild the middle class.

Ryan, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, saved the program from the chopping block once before.

The Advanced Technology Vehicle manufacturing program started under the Barack Obama administration with $17.7 billion. It loaned $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Co. to upgrade its factories to build efficient vehicles, and another $1.6 to Nissan Motor Co. to retool a Tennessee factory to build electric vehicles. Tesla Inc. got $465 million to ramp up its Fremont, Calif., plant. That loan was fully repaid in 2013.

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