‘Stop Trump’ in Indiana faces free-trade, Wall Street hurdles

Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich

NEW YORK – Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s decision to avoid presidential primary campaigning in Indiana in favor of Sen. Ted Cruz as part of a “Stop Trump” pact may seem surprising in that Kasich is well-known in Ohio’s neighbor state, but Kasich’s reputation as a Wall Street-affiliated free-trade advocate is perhaps even better known than Cruz’s.

Kasich’s support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the emerging Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, along with his former position with Lehman Brothers, makes the governor a tough sell in the May 3 primary in Indiana, where manufacturing has been hard hit by job losses attributable to NAFTA and the World Trade Organization.

“There’s no denying that manufacturing is a crucial part of Indiana’s economy – it leads the U.S. in manufacturing jobs – but one galling fact is clear: The industry that allowed the middle class to earn a superior standard of living is in decline,” wrote reporter Indianapolis Star reporter Kris Turner on Feb. 18.

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“The outsourcing of 2,100 Hoosier jobs to Mexico by Carrier and United Technologies Electronic Controls follows a longstanding trend of manufacturing jobs disappearing across Indiana,” Turner continued. “According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Indiana lost 235,058, or 31 percent, of its manufacturing job base from 1969 to 2014.”

WND reported Monday Cruz’s advocacy along with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Trade Promotion Authority, known as “fast-track authority,” for the Trans-Pacific Partnership as well both Ted and Heidi Cruz’s extensive ties to Goldman Sachs.

Yet, with Cruz positioning himself as a tea party candidate, his free-trade credentials are less obvious than Kasich’s. The Ohio governor’s votes in Congress for NAFTA and his seven-figure salaries at Lehman Brothers were issues during his first gubernatorial race in 2010.

Trump pledges to fight for Indiana jobs

At a rally in Indianapolis on April 21, Trump made frequent references to Mexico, asserting that the decision by the legacy air conditioning and refrigeration company Carrier to close two Indiana plants and shift 2,100 jobs to Mexico would never have happened had he been president.

“I’ll call up the head of Carrier and say congratulations, you’re moving to Mexico,” Trump said, as reported by WRBI radio in Batesville, Indiana. “I hope you enjoy the plant. I hope you enjoy the hot weather, but you’re leaving Indiana, and we’re going to protect the state of Indiana.”

Trump jumped on the issue during the GOP presidential debate hosted by CBS on Feb. 13 in South Carolina, emerging as the only candidate on stage to address the video that went viral the previous day showing “the anger and heartache of 1,400 Indianapolis workers who were informed that they soon would be out of work, as their company will be sending their jobs to Mexico.”

In emotional language, Trump championed Indiana workers.

“I would go right now to Carrier and I would say I am going to work awfully hard,” Trump said in the CBS debate.

“You’re going to make air conditioners now in Mexico. You’re going to get all of these 1,400 people that are being laid off – they’re laid off,” he continued. “They were crying. They were – it was a very sad situation. You’re going to go to Mexico. You’re going to make air conditioners in Mexico, you’re going to put them across our border with no tax.”

Making it clear he considered NAFTA the culprit, Trump pledged to fight to keep jobs.

“I’m going to tell them right now, I am going to get consensus from Congress, and we’re going to tax you when those air conditioners come in,” Trump said. “So stay where you are or build in the United States, because we are killing ourselves with trade pacts that are no good for us and no good for our workers.”

Cruz and Kasich did not address the Carrier move to Mexico during the CBS debate.

Lehman Brothers free-trade advocate

When Kasich campaigned for governor in 2010, his opponent, incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland, highlighted Kasich’s votes as a congressman for NAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations status for China under the World Trade Organization agreement, charging Ohio lost “hundreds of thousands” of jobs.

Strickland campaign spokeswoman Allison Kolodziej told the Daily News in Portsmouth, Ohio, in August 2010 that Kasich in Congress “looked after big multinational corporations” by supporting free trade deals that shipped Ohio jobs overseas.

The Akron Beacon Journal in January 2010 attacked Kasich over his record as a managing director at Lehman Brothers during the subprime mortgage boom. The paper emphasized Kasich left only when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, while homeowners and investors in Ohio suffered and Lehman executives were paid more than $16 billion in bonuses.

In his final year as managing director for Lehman, Kasich was paid $614,892, which included a base salary of $182,692 and more than twice that amount paid in bonuses, $432,200, Ohio newspapers reported in 2010. His salary in 2008 included six weeks working for Barclay Capital after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008.

In all, Kasich’s gross unadjusted income for 2008 was $1,386,648, with his Lehman Brothers income boosted by over a quarter-million dollars paid by Fox News for his work as a contributor, various speaker fees and lecturing at Ohio State University.

Ohio loses manufacturing to outsourcing

WND reported last month that despite Kasich’s boast of job growth during his two terms as Ohio governor, the state has continued to lose manufacturing jobs to free-trade outsourcing as the Ohio economy has transformed under his watch from high-paying, full-time jobs largely in manufacturing to lower-paying, part-time service jobs.

Kasich supports the quick passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, dubbed by critics “Obama-trade.”

Kasich said in the GOP debate in Milwaukee last November that the TPP is “critical to us, not only for economic reasons and for jobs, because there are so many people who are connected to getting jobs because of trade, but it allows us to create not only economy alliances, but also potentially strategic alliances against the Chinese.”

“They are not our enemy, but they are certainly not our friend,” he said.

However, Robert Higgs, the Northeast Ohio Media Group Columbus bureau chief, took Kasich to task for claiming in the GOP presidential debate in Cleveland in August that Ohio had added 350,000 private-sector jobs on his watch.

Higgs pointed out that according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ohio was recovering from recession at the end of President George W. Bush’s second term. Under the leadership of Kasich’s predecessor, Strickland, Ohio was down nearly 360,000 jobs through October 2010.

The left-leaning Washington-based think tank Public Citizen, founded by political activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, claims Ohio has lost more than 307,000 manufacturing jobs – one out of every three – since the 1994 NAFTA and WTO agreements took effect.

Ohio loses jobs to TPP countries

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported March 3 that Ohio lost 112,500 jobs in 2015 as a result of the U.S. trade deficit with TPP countries, citing a study by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, EPI.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries lacks an absolutely key component to keep it from doing potential damage to the U.S. economy,” the EPI report noted. “The missing piece of this trade and investment deal is a set of restrictions and/or enforceable penalties against member countries that engage in currency manipulation.”

The report said currency manipulation is “one of the key driving forces behind the high and rapidly rising U.S. trade deficit with the 11 other members of the TPP.”

“In 2015, the U.S. deficit with TPP countries translated into 2 million U.S. jobs lost, more than half (1.1 million) of which were in manufacturing,” the EPI report stressed. “Without such provisions against currency manipulation, the TPP could well follow other trade agreements and leave even greater U.S. trade deficits in its wake.”

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