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For Edwards, it’s déjà vu all over again on trade
Denounces Chinese policies, explains vote for 2000 China trade accord
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John Edwards, in his own words In speeches pulled from the NBC News archives, former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., touches upon the primary themes of his presidential campaign -- labor unions, Iraq and health care. NBC News Web Extra |
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Here’s a concrete way to think about the issue: When you were heading off to school as a kid, the clothes you wore had been washed by your mom or dad in a Maytag washing machine, made in Newton, Iowa.
Your family’s purchase of that washing machine helped pay the salary of a worker in Newton, who maybe had a family something like yours.
After 100 years as the anchor of the town of Newton, the Maytag plant closed its doors last week, sending hundreds of workers into premature and unwanted retirement.
Last year Whirlpool acquired Maytag, and decided to close the plant, consolidating production with plants in Ohio.
The move, Whirlpool explained, would “enhance the company's ability to compete within the highly competitive global home appliance industry.”
That highly competitive global home appliance industry is like the highly competitive global aerospace industry and the highly competitive global steel industry, and dozens of other industries in which workers in China, Mexico, and other countries toil for far less than Americans do.
How to protect American workers
Just like four years ago, Democratic presidential contenders are saying they will protect American workers from the consequences of opening global labor markets to Chinese, Mexican, and other workers.
Last Friday Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards addressed the Maytag shutdown in a speech he delivered in Des Moines on American workers and the “social compact.”
The most instructive data wasn’t any numbers Edwards offered in his speech.
Instead it came from the man who introduced him to the crowd, Doug Bishop, a former Maytag worker who’s now the treasurer of Jasper County, Iowa.
Bishop showed me a historical artifact, a small square of white paper, a 1952 weekly pay stub from his grandfather who’d worked at the Maytag plant in Newton.
Bishop’s grandfather worked 48 hours that week back in 1952, for which Maytag paid him $71.28 in gross pay.
From that sum, FICA (Social Security) taxes of $1.07 were subtracted, as well as $2.55 in dues paid to the United Auto Workers union.
So, on a net weekly pay of $67.66, which works out to an annual net income of about $27,400 in today’s dollars, a Maytag worker could support a family in 1952.
There’s a lesson here in the radical depreciation of the dollar in the past 55 years.
Meet the Press
Fight over trade deal with Peru 
Oct. 7: John Edwards tells Tim Russert why he believes he is a stronger presidential candidate than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
On Monday, Edwards used Newton as the venue to announce his opposition to a trade accord the Bush administration has negotiated with Peru. The Peru trade deal is likely to be on the House floor for a vote next week.
The top U.S. imports from Peru are copper, pearls and precious stones.
Imports from Peru last year amounted to $5 billion, only 0.03 percent of all U.S. imports. In comparison, China accounts for 16 percent of U.S. imports — nearly $288 billion worth of goods last year. China is running neck and neck with Canada as the top source of U.S. imports.
While Edwards talked about what he sees as excessive CEO pay in his Des Moines speech, he did not mention China at all, alluding only to “ensuing the safety of imported food and drugs” without mentioning any specific country.
Later Thursday, in a meeting with 200 voters in Boone, Iowa, he said, “We’ve got these trade deals that cost Americans millions of jobs, and what do we get in return? Millions of dangerous Chinese toys.”
That line got a good reaction from the crowd.
Edwards didn’t tell them what he himself had said seven years ago when he voted for the China trade deal.
It was an accord President Clinton and Vice President Gore urged Congress to approve, a deal that has helped more than double Chinese exports to the United States since 2000.
MSNBC
China as 'keystone' to American prosperity
Oct. 30: The use of the Internet in this campaign has exploded. Community-driven news websites like “Newsvine” are where news junkies go to share the stories they care about. MSNBC’s Chris Jansing speaks with “Newsvine” contributor Chris Thomas.
As he explained his vote on Sept. 19, 2000, Edwards, then a senator from North Carolina, told the Senate, “Trade between U.S. companies and the Chinese will likely explode in the coming years, generating jobs and revenues in this country. It could easily be the keystone in the continuing prosperity of this nation.”
Edwards explained that his state would benefit because China would cut its tariffs on North Carolina’s poultry, pork and tobacco.
Edwards acknowledged that North Carolina’s textile and apparel workers would face increased pressure.
While the China trade legislation included an “anti-surge” proviso designed to stem a flood of imports, Edwards was quite candid in 2000 in acknowledging that “it does us no good to pretend that these remedies are perfect and that people will not be hurt.”
He touched on a classic problem of international trade policy: the hurt is highly concentrated among some workers in higher-wage countries — while the benefits of trade (lower prices, greater variety of goods) are broadly diffused over many millions of consumers.
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