One year after Donald Trump kicked off his re-election campaign …
Ohio’s economy is in shambles and Trump’s trade deal with China is a bust
One year ago today, Donald Trump kicked off his re-election campaign at a rally in Orlando, Florida. In the 12 months since, Ohio’s economy has struggled, manufacturing jobs have left the state and farmers have been crushed by Trump’s reckless trade war.
At that rally in Florida, Trump made wild claims about the number of manufacturing jobs created under his watch, even contending that new auto plants were being built in Ohio.
Donald Trump in Orlando, June 18, 2019:
“In the eight years before I took office, on average, we lost 2,000 manufacturing jobs a month. Since my inauguration, we’ve added 16,000 manufacturing jobs a month.”
The truth is this — Ohio lost 6,000 manufacturing jobs from January 2019 to January 2020, and many parts of Ohio that are heavily dependent on manufacturing are struggling with job losses. There have been no new auto plants built in Ohio. The General Motors plant in Lordstown shut down last March.
Yet, here are some of the headlines from the last year — all of them from before the coronavirus crisis hit:
“Steel company sells for less than half what it was worth when Trump took office”
“TimkenSteel cutting jobs as part of restructuring”
“MITEC Powertrain in Findlay to close by fall”
“Guardian Glass plant in Millbury to shut down”
Trump broke his promise to revitalize the manufacturing industry, and he broke his promise to get tough on China. At his Florida rally one year ago, Trump bragged about the “good deal” he was going to get from the Chinese government.
Donald Trump in Orlando, June 18, 2019:
“I spoke to President Xi. Terrific president, a great leader of China, spoke to him this morning at length, and we’ll see what happens, but we are going to have a good deal and a fair deal or we’re not going to have a deal at all and that’s OK, too.”
Trump got his deal with China, but it isn’t good, and it isn’t fair. Quite simply, Trump got rolled. Not only did Trump’s “phase one” trade pact fail to boost purchases of U.S. exports, it failed to even stop the bleeding by getting exports back to where they were before his chaotic trade war by tweet. And China won’t come close to purchasing the $50 billion a year in U.S. agricultural products that Trump promised.
Trump was too busy lavishing obsequious praise on China’s leader and begging him for help for his re-election campaign to get a good deal for American workers.
Trump kept right on praising the Chinese government as the coronavirus crisis emerged, and he bought their P.R. spin, rather than doing what was needed to prepare for the pandemic. During the first critical weeks of the outbreak — when he was busy complimenting China’s “extremely capable” handling of the situation, holding campaign rallies and golfing — Trump failed to prepare our country for what was coming. He failed to heed the warnings and intelligence coming from his own experts and advisers and blindly trusted the word of China’s authoritarian regime.
It’s been twelve months since Donald Trump kicked off his re-election campaign, and during that time, Ohio has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs, and thousands of Ohioans have lost their lives to the coronavirus. Donald Trump keeps breaking his promises, and Ohioans are paying the price.
