Biden Didn’t Listen: Supported Outsourcing that Killed Michigan Jobs

Joe Biden was warned in 1993 that a vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would send Michigan jobs to Mexico, but he didn’t listen.

Biden said at the time: “I’m supporting NAFTA because I think it’s a positive thing to do.”

Trade agreements like NAFTA and granting China permanent normal trade relations in 2000, which forced American workers to compete with international workers for pennies on the hour, killed more than 160,000 jobs in the state of Michigan alone.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson summed up the impact of granting permanent trade relations with China on his show:

In 2000, for example, the U.S.-China Trade Relations Act gave China normal trade status. What does that mean? Well, in her book, “China RX,” Rosemary Gibson, who we’ve had on the show, details how that piece of legislation opened the floodgates for Chinese drug imports.

Within three years of the bill passing, America lost its last aspirin factory, its last vitamin C facility, its last penicillin plant. Our ability to make critically vital antibiotics in this country vanished, and that was a serious blow to our national security.

And yet Joe Biden voted for that bill. He went on to oppose amendments to it that would have put pressure on China to release political prisoners and stop forced abortions. Eleven years later in 2011, Biden still didn’t see the threat. In fact, he appeared to welcome it.

That year, he said, “A rising China is a positive development not only for China, but for America.” The day that Biden gave that speech, millions of Americans already lost their jobs. They’ve been shipped overseas to China.

Chinese students were already flooding America’s schools and research labs, crowding out Americans, stealing the data and information. And in the end that would boost the Chinese economy to where it stands today — larger than ours.

It is hard to believe Biden said that, but it wasn’t the only time he did. Here’s Biden last May on the campaign trail.

Biden: China is going to eat our lunch. Come on, man. They’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not a competition for us.

In terms of NAFTA, Biden continues to be unrepentant on his vote, if somewhat equivocal, saying “it made sense at the moment.”

You couldn’t trust Joe Biden then, and you can’t trust him now to support Michigan’s economic recovery.