Ohio Democrats Slam New NAFTA
Two Ohio Democrats who voted against the original NAFTA -- Rep. Marcy Kaptur and Sen. Sherrod Brown -- have clearly not been won over by the efforts of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to satisfy union autoworkers that the revised deal will stop the flow of jobs to Mexico. According to the Ohio state government, auto parts, auto manufacturing, and RV, tire and trailer manufacturing jobs employed more than 107,000 workers in 2019 -- though that included 1,700 who just lost their jobs at GM's Lordstown plant. That closure follows more than 38,500 jobs lost in the industry in the state between 2007 and 2009.
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Brown, in a brief interview with International Trade Today at the Capitol, said the lack of enforceability of labor standards will "bring this down, unless Canada and Mexico and the U.S. open negotiations and get serious about labor standards. It can't be fixed in side letters -- they've sung that song before." He said he "wouldn't even call it a new NAFTA."
Kaptur, speaking during a House Steel Caucus meeting March 27, questioned why there aren't wage standards for other industries besides autos. She said unless there's a way to get Mexican workers paid at the same wages as U.S. workers, companies will "continue to outsource everything." She said that without wage standards across the board, "it won't get my support. It's an open door to a low-wage economy. We haven't faced it in my entire career in Congress." She was first elected in 1982. Because Ohio's population has not grown as areas in the Sun Belt have, Kaptur's district expanded from the Toledo region to include the western Cleveland suburbs that Brown represented in the House before he went to the Senate.
Kaptur told the steel company executives testifying about how well Section 232 tariffs are working that they need to go see how Mexicans who work in sweatshops live. "See if you can sleep at night. It's inhumane, and somebody has to be a voice for that." Nucor, whose CEO was at the steel meeting, has multiple facilities in Mexico, to serve the Mexican car industry as well as to sell to mining, oil and gas, and sugar processing concerns.