The AAM team heads off to Iowa today in preparation for our second national Town Hall meeting on October 17.  Over the next few days, we’ll be meeting with various members of the press, and having our host, John Ratzenberger, do a series of TV and radio interviews in order to spread the word.

We’re expecting a great turnout for the Wednesday night event, with even the Iowa staffers of various presidential candidates requesting seats.  It looks the campaigns maybe be catching on to the public’s view that U.S. trade policy needs a serious re-think.  In fact, a piece in today’s Buffalo News (which happens to quote AAM’s Scott Paul) examines exactly this change of heart, spotlighting Hillary Clinton’s renewed attention to trade and manufacturing issues. 

It’s not just Democrats who are focusing more attention on U.S. manufacturing, though.  According to Bloomberg News’ Mark Drajem, a number of free trade Congressional Republicans are also growing more concerned about both the increasing U.S. trade deficit and import safety issues.

We can’t help but be encouraged by this and maybe it really is true that when the people lead, the leaders will have to follow.  A hint of this ran in the Huffington Post over the weekend, by the way.  Apparently, U.S. consumers have become so disenchanted with China-made toys, that they’re turning to U.S. goods, and consequently there’s already been a noticeable increase in sales of toys marked “Made in USA.”

ManufactureThis will be watching carefully to see how it all plays out.  But tell us what you think.  You can ask questions for John Ratzenberger at the Town Hall event this week by emailing him at AskJohn@aamfg.org.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Manufacturing in the U.S., Enforcing Trade Laws, AAM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.