Ohio’s Strickland, Brown and Michigan’s Granholm Mangle McCain for Support of Unfair Trade Deals like NAFTA

Ohio’s Strickland, Brown and Michigan’s Granholm Blast McCain for Support of Unfair Trade Deals

Ohio, Michigan Leaders Mangle McCain Over Trade Deals, Back Obama in Bid to Renegotiate Them

OhioNews Bureau

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Ohio’s Gov. Strickland and junior US Senator Sherrod Brown teamed up Friday with Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to blast Republican presidential nominee John McCain over his support of trade deals the trio said sent hundreds of thousands of jobs to Mexico and China and back Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s promise to renegotiate them into fair trade deals that will help return balance to a process they say will also return lost jobs to the country.

In a conference call the OhioNews Bureau participated in hosted by the Obama campaign for president, Strickland, Brown and Granholm each made statements describing the devastating affect on their respective states that trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, which they said needs to be renegotiated so it is as fair as it is free, have produced in lost jobs and communities and families that have suffered as jobs were exported to trading partners like China and Mexico.

BACKDROP ON OHIO, MICHIGAN ECONOMIC WOES

The backdrop to the call is that bad trade deals have been particularly harmful to communities in Ohio, which has lost 224,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001, and has seen an accompanying decrease of $4,400 in average annual income and 153 percent increase in bankruptcy filings since 2000. In Michigan, which share the ignominious status with Ohio of being one of only a few states who have yet to achieve the level of jobs they had before the recession of 2001, which also coincides with the presidential term of George W. Bush, whose trade policies they said are being embraced by McCain, who spoke in Ottawa, Canada, about why NAFTA has been good for both countries.

BROWN SAYS NAFTA NOT GOOD FOR OHIO

Sen. Brown, who moved from the House to the Senate in 2006, when he soundly beat Republican incumbent Mike DeWine to enter his first term as an Ohio senator, said McCain, who was speaking in Ottawa, Canada, should come to Ottawa in northwest Ohio where the trade deal he supported have left the community battered in the wake of the loss of 1,100 good-paying jobs when television tube maker Phillips shipped those jobs to Mexico.

Ohio’s job losses from trade deals like NAFTA represent nearly 8 percent of the three million job losses Brown said have resulted in bad news for Ohio and the nation. Brown, who said McCain has not tried to put distance between himself and Bush and who hasn’t changed his mind on NAFTA and similar trade deals, said “there is no trade deal McCain hasn’t liked” and that “it’s clear he will sign more trade agreement with almost any country.” “Ohio can’t afford it; Ohio workers can’t afford it,” he said of deals that have compromised food safety, produced toxic toys and unsafe prescription drugs that have harmed consumers, families and workers.

GRANHOLM SAYS NAFTA VERY BAD FOR MICHIGAN

Granholm laid into McCain as being “completely out of touch with situation on the ground in Michigan.” The two-term governor said that Ohio’s job losses pale in comparison to the 400,000 jobs Michigan has lost during the Bush presidency. She said Michigan has been devastated under Bush and challenged McCain to Detroit and say what he’s saying in Canada to the people who have lost jobs.

Granholm’s most stunning fact that trade deals like the kind McCain has long supported are totally lopsided was that South Korea was able to sell 700,000 cars here while the US car manufacturers only sold 4,560 cars there, a situation she said is testament to the 11 billion dollar deficit in the automotive trade between the two countries.

“Why are we blocked,” she asked listening reporters, arguing that the trade with South Korea engineered by the Bush administration doesn’t change discriminatory practice or enforce regulations. “It’s bad for Michiganders,” she added as she skewered McCain for his consistent opposition to funding for job training programs for displaced workers and for voting against retraining money.

STRICKLAND WANTS REWRITE OF NAFTA

Third up in the lineup for today’s call was Strickland of Ohio. He said Obama is not opposed to trade, as he said none of them were because it’s a “tool to reach a worthy goal” but then said he’s “disturbed by the fact on McCain’s history that he has been opposed to helping those who have lost jobs as a result of these trade deals.” Strickland said that “not only has he (McCain) supported trade agreements but (he has) opposed efforts to give assistance to those who have been negatively affected by them.”

Strickland assured us reporters that Obama supports environmental standards, greater market access and anti dumping violations along with labor and environmental standards in trade agreements and that he will stop China from manipulating currency and oppose tax breaks that support outsourcing and taking jobs form America. Strickland, who joined Brown when they were both Congressman to oppose NAFTA, called it a trade deal that was “outrageously unbalanced” and said come November “we will have a clear choice…the single most important issue why our states are where they are today.”

Brown said he is confident Obama will renegotiate trade deals like NAFTA and the trade agreement with South Korea because he understands the “bigger picture.” Brown pointed to Obama’s Patriot Employer’s Bill that relies on the use of tax incentives to create jobs at home by offering tax credits that maintain or increase jobs here rather than outside the country.”

He also assured reporters that Obama would not act unilaterally but seek to enter in discussions with trading partners. Brown said America needs to find the courage to take on trading behemoths like China, who he said ships one-third of its exports to the US.

Granholm said “we want to have an export market and not just be an importer” and that “fair trade will create jobs here.” Strickland and Brown echoed her statement, saying that fair trade deals “will create a middle class society in other countries that can then buy products and raise living standards.”

McCAIN TOUTS NAFTA PLUSES IN CANADA

McCain, speaking in Canada today about the theme that the Obama campaign shouldn’t put vital ties with Canada at risk of NAFTA, said, “U.S. Sen. Barack Obama does not understand this. He called NAFTA 'devastating' and 'a big mistake,' characterizations that are out of touch with the reality of NAFTA in Michigan. What truly would be devastating is to jeopardize the trade expansion of NAFTA through a misguided, isolationist impulse that would inevitably and understandably alienate a key partner like Canada."

In stark contrast to what the governor of the Upper Hand state said on how NAFTA has harmed her state, McCain said Michigan can credit 221,000 jobs to the trade with Canada” and that “NAFTA countries comprise by far the largest export market for Michigan manufacturers.” Last year, a post on his campaign Web site said, “Michigan businesses sent more than $23 billion of exports to Canada, more than 20 times the total of their exports to China.”

“On my watch, America will listen to the views of our democratic allies. When we believe action is necessary, whether military, economic or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them,” his Web site said.

OBAMA FORTUNE INTERVIEW CLARIFIES STANCES ON NAFTA

Hari Sevug of Obama for America sent reporters following the conference call a transcript of Obama’s comments featured in an interview with Fortune Magazine that include his thoughts on free and fair trade deals.

In the interview, Obama said that his core position has never changed and that he has “always been a proponent of free trade and I’ve always been a believer that we have to have strong environmental provisions and strong labor provisions in our trade agreements.”

He said that there may be a modest aggregate benefit in terms of lowering prices for consumers, but state that “NAFTA had an adverse affect on certain communities that saw jobs move to Mexico and millions of people in Mexico were displaced and are contributing to the immigration crisis.”

But Obama said he “would not repeal NAFTA…because repealing NAFTA would probably result in more job losses than gains” and that he “would use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to renegotiate labor and environmental standards for NAFTA.”

Such trade deals as NAFTA and CAFTA, the Central American version of it, “were not in the best interest of the American worker because they did not contain the sorts of labor provisions and environmental provisions that they should have.”