Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning issued the following statement today in reaction to Joe Biden’s remarks yesterday to autoworkers in Ohio.
“Joe Biden did something remarkable in a speech to select autoworkers in Ohio yesterday, he lamented the death of the Delaware auto industry, which began in the early 1990s. The shutdown of a once-thriving Newark, Delaware auto plant culminated with the December, 2008 shutdown of the once thriving Chrysler plant which had been the second largest employer in his state. This plant reached its peak with 5400 workers before Sen. Joe Biden voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. A Chicago Federal Reserve article by Thomas Klier reports that while Joe’s beloved Delaware auto workers were eliminated in the first fourteen years of the agreement, Mexico’s auto industry has more than tripled as of 2018.
“And what of Chrysler? According to Klier, “… in anticipation of NAFTA, three full-scale assembly plants were opened during the early 1990s (one each by Chrysler, GM, and Nissan),” additionally Chrysler chose to manufacture the PT Cruiser exclusively in Mexico during its nine year run, while shutting the Newark plant during that same span.
“Why does this matter? Simply because while Biden was Senator for the entirety of the decline and death of the Delaware auto industry, he effectively loaded the gun through his support for NAFTA and the Permanent Normalized Trade Relations agreement with China. Biden is either completely unaware of the connection between his Mexico/Canada first trade policy and the export of U.S. auto jobs from Delaware, or he is one of the most audacious liars in the history of politics. Auto workers trusting Joe Biden to stand up for their jobs is like chickens putting their protection in the hands of Colonel Sanders. I suspect that America’s autoworkers won’t be fooled by someone who has spent almost fifty years worshipping at the altar of globalism and traded away thousands of their fellow union members livelihoods.
“As Biden himself might say, ‘C’mon man, you know me.’ Unfortunately for Biden, they do.”