Kasich: I Am for Clamping Down Free Trade When the US Worker Gets Shafted
TODD: “I was just going to say I want to bring -- because every time I travel through Ohio, and I've been a part of focus groups, I've conducted that and you talk to people. It is amazing to me, Ohioans in general, and I'll see it across the spectrum, boy, they're leery of trade deals. And they still blame NAFTA –“
KASICH: “Sure, they are.”
TODD: “You go to Ohio, I didn't even bring up NAFTA in a bunch of interviews, and they immediately went to NAFTA and said, ‘Bad deal for Ohio.’”
KASICH: “Yeah. Well, you know, the interesting thing is there are now some car companies talking about moving things to Mexico, and they're citing NAFTA. And I'm going to dig into that. But by and large, open trade is good for us. It's a part –“
TODD: “And you were a NAFTA guy.”
KASICH: “Yes. It's part of our ability to –“
TODD: “Tough thing to be in Ohio, no?”
KASICH: “Chuck, we're not in this to get elected, we're in this to do the right thing. I mean, aren't you tired of -- I mean, forget it. I'm not doing those calculations. Now, here's what I do believe. I think that we have, in some ways, been saps. I have a friend that ran a steel company. I said, ‘Do you think that Koreans, for example, are dumping their material and destroying our jobs?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Why don't we do something about it?’ He says, ‘It takes two years to get a remedy, to get a decision.’ That is baloney. We need to have these decisions decided quickly because we can't have people coming in here and dumping stuff and destroying our jobs in this country. That's where I grew up. I grew up with steel workers. So what I would say to you is open trade, but we're not going to be saps. We're not going to look the other way when there's a problem. Now, there are some people actually running for president now who think that, no matter what happens, they're free traders. I'm not. I am not. I am for open trade, free trade, but I am for clamping down when the United States worker gets shafted because somebody is cheating on a trade agreement.”
