Tuesday’s remarks also come the same day as the House Select Committee on Benghazi drops its report on the terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which Republicans have used to attack presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s leadership as secretary of state.
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“Interestingly, Trump’s own products are made in a lot of countries that aren’t named America”, Clinton said in a speech last week.
Trump also pledged to revive the USA steel and aluminum industry, speaking at an aluminum scrap company in Monessen, Pennsylvania, almost 30 miles (50 km) south of Pittsburgh, the one-time American steelmaking capital.
Tell NAFTA partners I intend to immediately renegotiate the terms of that agreement to get a better deal for our workers.
Trump’s message to voters in the region: I’m the turnaround artist you need.
Early on in his yearlong campaign, Trump singled out specific American companies – notably Ford and Nabisco – for plans to move some of their manufacturing plants overseas. “Yet today, 240 years after the revolution, we have turned things completely upside-down”.
Hillary Clinton’s policy agenda, on the other hand, would add just $250 billion over the next decade – a fraction of Trump’s increases – and keep debt in line with current policy.
First, Trump set his sights on the TPP, the massive trade deal that would link the US and 11 Pacific Rim nations.
Trump also announced his plan to withdraw the United States from NAFTA.
“Just turned on the TV: Is Trump giving this speech inside a giant trash compactor?” wondered Nevada political journalist Jon Ralston.
Trump, in his speech, portrayed Clinton as an agent of a status quo “that worships globalism over Americanism” and criticized her past support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he described as “the deathblow for American manufacturing”.
Trump, in his speech, is expected to portray Clinton as a proponent of globalization and someone who has voiced opposition to trade deals in the past, only to turn around and support them. At a rally Tuesday evening in St. Clairsville, Ohio, in addition to comparing the TPP to rape, Trump reiterated his call for the return of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques in the fight against Islamic State militants, declaring, “you have to fight fire with fire”.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee slammed “a policy of globalization”, that has hurt the middle class and praised voters in Great Britain for choosing to withdraw from the European Union. “I think this is going to be one of the defining issues in this election”.
If Trump is to carry Pennsylvania, Monessen is the kind of Democratic town he must win in November.
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“We already have a trade war”. “Not with Trump, they won’t have their own way”.
