Ohioans should remember the lies
Three years ago, Donald Trump came to Ashtabula County and promised to protect Ohio jobs. Now the GM Lordstown plant is closed, and thousands of good-paying jobs have been lost from northeastern Ohio.
Three years ago, Donald Trump came to Ashtabula County, and he made a promise to the people of Ohio. After giving a speech in Geneva, Trump told a reporter “there will be consequences” for companies that ship jobs to Mexico.
“When a company fires all of its people and moves to Mexico and then thinks they are going to resell products back to Ohio and other places — it’s not going to be so easy,” he said.
Three years later the General Motors plant in Lordstown is closed, and thousands of good-paying jobs have been lost from northeastern Ohio.
Meanwhile, GM is now building the Chevrolet Blazer at a plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico. Once upon a time, the Blazer was built in Moraine, Ohio. It could have been built in Lordstown, but GM decided to build the SUV in Mexico instead.
What have the consequences been for GM from Trump? Other than a few Tweets — nothing. The only people holding GM accountable have been their workers, who recently walked a picket line for weeks.
Some of you may think, so what, at least Trump is getting tough on Mexico and taking on China. Except, he isn’t.
The head of the AFL-CIO is urging the House not to rush into voting for Trump’s NAFTA 2.0 because he’s worried Mexico won’t be able to hold up its end of the bargain. And as Trump has waged his trade war with China, the people who are feeling the pain are American farmers.
Agriculture is Ohio’s number one industry, and we rank sixth in the nation for the amount of soybeans grown here. As exports to China crashed, farmers are struggling to make ends meet. More than half of Ashtabula County’s farm acreage is devoted to soybeans, which means it’s one of the places being most hurt.
Ashtabula County was one of nine counties in Ohio that voted for Barack Obama twice and then Trump in 2016. But perhaps Trump’s broken promises and fake populism are starting to wear thin because in 2018 Sherrod Brown flipped Ashtabula County back to blue.
Trump’s pledge that there would be consequences for shipping jobs overseas is just one of many broken promises from the president. It’s been one broken promise after another from Donald Trump, and Ohioans are paying the price.
By Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper
This op-ed was originally printed in the Ashtabula Star Beacon on 10/28/19
