Lake County Sentinel
Brown calls for President-Elect Trump to follow through on campaign promise and renegotiate NAFTA
(WASHINGTON, DC) – CLEVELAND, OH – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) called on President-Elect Trump today to follow through on his campaign pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) within his first 100 days in office. Brown stood in front of the Celebrezze Federal Building in Cleveland – where he joined protests against NAFTA when it was first introduced in the 90s – and said he intends to hold Trump accountable for making good on his promise and work with him to ensure a renegotiated deal puts Ohio jobs first.
“I am calling on President-Elect Trump to make good on his promise to Ohioans and offering to work with him to form a trade policy that protects American workers and creates Ohio jobs,” Brown said. “I have spent my career fighting for a trade policy that puts American workers ahead of corporate profits. I’ve stood up to Presidents of both parties, and now I’m willing to work with President Trump to hold him accountable for keeping his promises and make sure we get this right.”
During the press conference, Brown outlined three main aspects of NAFTA that must be renegotiated including:
· Getting rid of NAFTA’s investor state dispute settlement provisions, which are corporate handouts that allow multinational corporations to challenge U.S. law.
· Protecting U.S. auto workers and the domestic steel industry by renegotiating NAFTA’s rules of origin, which determine how much of a product must be made in a country in order to benefit from the trade agreement.
· Making sure all companies and countries are on a level playing-field so corporations don’t have incentive to ship jobs to Mexico in order to pay workers less.
As a long-time advocate for fair trade, Brown has stood up to presidents of both parties on shortsighted trade agreements that ship U.S. jobs overseas. He led the bipartisan opposition to NAFTA in 1993 – as a freshman in the U.S. House of Representatives – and to CAFTA in 2005. Sen. Brown is working on trade policies that promote our workers, small businesses, and manufacturers while creating jobs and expanding markets through an aggressive export promotion strategy.
POSTED 11/14/2016 15:44
