Obama ad slams McCain on China trade
Barack Obama's campaign launched a tough new TV ad today in Pennsylvania and other swing states that tries to tie John McCain to what it calls unfair trade with China.
The ad cites the 2004 shutdown of the Corning plant in State College, Pa., during which some worker were briefly rehired to send the equipment to a new plant in China. The Obama campaign, blaming China's unfair trade practices that have "long been protected by the Bush-McCain economic policies," cites a study from Economic Policy Institute saying that the United States has lost 1.7 million jobs due to the growing trade deficit with China since President Bush took office.
"Corning shuts down its plant in Pennsylvania, hundreds lose their jobs," the announcer says in the ad. "Then the workers are rehired to disassemble the plant. And ship the equipment to China.
"Washington sold them out, with the help of people like John McCain," the announcer continues. "He supported tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. And voted against cracking down on China for unfair trade practices. We can’t afford more of the same."
Responding to the ad, the Republican National Committee accused Obama of not helping workers at a Maytag plant being shut down in his home state of Illinois.
“In lieu of accomplishments or any real record of reform, Barack Obama is choosing gutter politics to attack John McCain. Pennsylvanians have already seen Barack Obama’s thin record and false attacks and just as they did this spring, they’re eager to tell him ‘thanks but no thanks,” Blair Latoff, a RNC spokeswoman, said in a statement.
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Here's a few facts that I believe are important when we talk about jobs and the huge deficit.
1) North American Fair Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is anything but fair. Many of the manufacturing jobs in America have been sent to China under NAFTA.
2) NAFTA was passed during the Clinton administration and was backed by big business. The corporation that I worked for at the time told me to write to my congress and senate officials and ask them to support NAFTA. We had no idea we were going to loose our jobs.
3)The current Busch Administration has supported big business in all requests they have made, including bailouts.
4)If next president supports more "free trade agreements" we will continue to loose jobs that can't be replaced and our national deficit will continue to grow.
5) More of the same will be a recipe for disaster.
Interesting to see the US election has evolved into a football match between the two contestants, using China as the football having found no presidential objective.
Be careful what you wish for. If China appreciate Yuan significantly, three things will happen: (1) The jobs ain't coming back to America. The fact is that most Jobs were shifted from 3rd world countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Thailand etc to China, NOT directly from USA to China. (2) There will be inflation of manufacturing products; basically Wallmart would need to rip up its supply chain in China and put it in more expensive/less effecient places (other 3rd world countries). American consumers would end up paying more. (3) China would stop buying US treasury; the FED would have to raise interest rate to prevent a flight from the dollar and thus cause a major recession.
So sounds like the only solution is to continue to send all our manufacturing to China. Enventually, we will build nothing here in the U.S. . How sad. Go to a Home Depot a store which sells everthing you can think of centered around owning a home. Pick up 50 products and read where there are made. You will find that 90 to 97 % are made in China. I already did that experiment. Try to buy a pair of shoes not made in China. Companies send their manufacturing to China, then ship their products back to the U.S. for us to buy. But in the meanwhile these companies have eliminated the jobs of the many American people they want to buy their products. These companies probably do not pay the Chinese workers enough to buy their products. There's not much use for 95% of the products in Home Depot if you rent an apartment because you can not afford a house. My husband and I are building a house, much with our own hands. We both have very good jobs also. I try very hard to buy things from companies who make their products in America, but it is very difficult to find. I would like to find a product that's even made in England; you won't. Or at least how about paying the Chinese workers a good wage. I have no desire to watch and see how low in pay the American worker can go; a rush to spiral to the bottom, when America has come so far.