Trump slams trade deals
Detroit visit draws protesters
Making America great again could mean tearing up trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, says the man who wants to be the next U.S. president.
“If we don’t get a better deal, we will walk away,” Republican candidate Donald Trump told an audience of mostly business people during a sold-out speech Monday before the influential Detroit Economic Club.
Trump outlined his economic vision to 1,500 paying guests and 200 media at an event designed to reset a recently floundering campaign and to pivot the U.S. presidential race toward issues of deep concern to America’s industrial heartland.
Promising “the biggest tax revolution” since the Reagan years of the 1980s, Trump described deep across-the-board tax reductions and “cutting regulations massively” as major pillars in an employment generating plan he contrasted to “the job-killing, tax-raising, poverty-inducing Obama-Clinton agenda.”
Trump promised more details in coming weeks, but he said American businesses operating overseas can expect a new 10 per cent tax that will “bring back trillions of dollars” and be used for jobs reinvestment at home.
Insisting that “trade has big benefits” and that “isolation is not an option,” Trump nevertheless said NAFTA and other current trade deals, including with China and South Korea, have cost too many American jobs.
“The next betrayal will be the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” he said. A vote for Hillary Clinton, Trump added, “is a vote for TPP — and it’s also a vote for NAFTA.”
Trump reminded his audience that NAFTA was signed by Hillary Clinton’s husband, Bill, when he was U.S. president, and that it has “shipped your jobs to Mexico and other countries.”
Once the “economic envy of the world,” Trump described Detroit as a ground zero of crime and low wages after the country abandoned its former “America First policy” and began exporting jobs abroad.
“The city of Detroit is the living, breathing example of my opponent’s failed economic agenda,” said Trump, adding that “every policy that has failed this city ... is a policy supported by Hillary Clinton.”
But an automotive expert warns that ripping up NAFTA after many existing businesses in Michigan and Ontario have spent years adapting to it, “would be a killer.”
Automotive-related companies, including in Windsor, have adjusted to NAFTA and created “the world’s most integrated supply chain,” said Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association. Severing those links, he said, would be “problematic” and could harm the very manufacturing businesses Trump promises his plan would help.
When it comes to international trade agreements like NAFTA, “there are lots of complex layers,” said Matt Marchand, president and CEO of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce. He said there are parts of the southern U.S. that have benefitted from NAFTA by aggressively pursuing new investment, something his organization and others have been trying to get Ontario and Ottawa to do as well.
Some of the trade deals denounced by Trump have actually benefitted Michigan companies, acknowledged Dennis Darnoi. The Pontiac, Mich., small business owner attended Trump’s speech Monday and liked his America First promise.
“Americanism, not globalism, will be our new credo — we are ready to show the world that America is back,” Trump concluded to a standing ovation.
Unlike at other recent campaign appearances, Trump remained stony-faced as one protester after another — more than a dozen, mostly women — stood up at seemingly planned intervals and tried shouting down the candidate. Each heckler was quickly hauled out of the Cobo Center, and there was loud applause each time Trump resumed his speech.
A Trump administration, the Republican candidate said, would roll back environmental and other “war-on-coal” regulations that have forced coal-fired power plants across Michigan to either implement “expensive conversions” or shut down.
On foreign policy, a Trump administration will “get our allies to pay their fair share for the protection we provide for them,” he said. Even the current Obama administration has been critical of Canada’s level of military spending.
The business-oriented audience was receptive to Trump’s message, with his speech frequently interrupted by standing ovations, one of the loudest coming when Trump pledged to “repeal and replace disastrous ObamaCare.”
There was almost a sense of relief from those in the pro-business audience when Trump stuck to the delivery of his prepared speech and didn’t veer off into his customary ad-lib commentary that has contributed to recent troubles in the polls.
“Personal attacks create an immense level of noise that distracts ... (and) takes our entire country down many pegs,” said Philip Kessler, a Detroit corporate lawyer. He said friends and colleagues in Europe have told him they’re “terrified” by some of the things they’ve heard about Trump.
Retired banker and Detroit Economic Club member Bill Willard said that, “if he gets back on track with his message, Mr. Trump will be all right.”