Finally, a reporter who gets the problem. 

On MSNBC.com today, reporter Tom Curry notes that trade and manufacturing issues should rank high in tonight’s Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia.  As AAM’s Scott Paul pointed out on the Huffington Post yesterday, manufacturing is key to sustaining a thriving middle class.  And without a healthy manufacturing sector, the U.S. will lose competitiveness in the 21st Century.

In the MSNBC piece entitled, ‘For Edwards, it’s déjà vu all over again on trade,’ Curry notes that in 2000, then-Senator John Edwards voted to support Most Favored Nation Trade status.  But on the campaign trail in 2007, Edwards has lamented “trade deals that cost Americans millions of jobs” while yielding imports of “[m]illions of dangerous Chinese toys.”

Curry specifically asked Edwards if he now regrets his vote for China in 2000, which prompted Edwards to note that “America’s trade policy as a whole is why workers are suffering.”

The forthright questioning by Curry is impressive because it specifically asks candidates to take a stand on how they’ll move forward regarding U.S. manufacturing.  AAM is doing the same thing with its national campaign of Town Hall meetings—pressing voters to demand better answers from their candidates on questions like “How will you hold countries like China accountable when they cheat at international trade?”

These are the issues of key importance, and they should be sounded loudly at each debate.  We’ll be watching to see what the candidates say tonight.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 8:59 pm and is filed under Manufacturing in the U.S., Holding China Accountable, Economic Security. 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.