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Donald Trump to Give Speech Voicing Skepticism of Global Trade Deals Donald Trump Vows to Rip Up Trade Deals and Confront China
(about 9 hours later)
Donald J. Trump will give a speech on trade along the outskirts of Pittsburgh on Tuesday, his second major address in less than a week as his campaign seeks to turn the page on the tumultuous month since he captured the Republican nomination. MONESSEN, Pa. — Donald J. Trump vowed on Tuesday to rip up international trade deals and start an unrelenting offensive against Chinese economic practices, framing his contest with Hillary Clinton as a choice between hard-edge nationalism and the policies of “a leadership class that worships globalism.”
The speech will focus on an issue that has been a calling card for Mr. Trump in his upstart presidential race: a deep skepticism of global trade deals that exist in the base of both parties. Speaking in western Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump sought to turn the page on weeks of campaign turmoil and racial controversy by returning to a core set of economic grievances that have animated his campaign from the start. He threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as Nafta, and pledged to label China a currency manipulator and impose punitive tariffs on Chinese goods.
Perhaps most significant? He will deliver the speech not at a Trump property, but at Alumisource, a steel industry firm. He attacked Mrs. Clinton for flip-flopping on her past support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact negotiated by the Obama administration, and challenged her to pledge that she would void the agreement in its entirety. Noting Mrs. Clinton had backed free-trade agreements like Nafta in the past, Mr. Trump warned, “She will betray you again.”
Mr. Trump’s best shot at the presidency resides with working-class white voters, with whom his populist message has deep resonance amid stagnant wages. The speech is part of the campaign’s focused effort to move to a new phase, with the general election about four months away, and with much time squandered on infighting among advisers. Mr. Trump’s speech — part of a campaign swing through Pennsylvania and Ohio — was the start of a new effort to carve a path to 270 electoral votes on a daunting political map.
The Republican will speak a day after Hillary Clinton gave an address in Ohio with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a champion of anti-Wall Street sentiment, by her side. Ms. Warren was chastised as a “sellout” by Republicans for making the appearance with Mrs. Clinton, who has taken millions in donations and in paid speaking fees from Wall Street. The language and location of Mr. Trump’s speech encapsulated his aspirational strategy for the general election: His greatest source of support is white, working-class men, and his campaign hopes to compete in traditionally Democratic-leaning states, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, to offset his deep unpopularity with Hispanic voters in swing states like Florida and Colorado.
Whether Mr. Trump can capitalize on that criticism will be an open question on Tuesday. Mr. Trump delivered his address at a steel plant in the heart of coal country, on a stage flanked by blocks of compressed steel wiring, aluminum cans and other metals. Behind him was a metal conveyor belt that occasionally leaked plumes of dirt and dust.
For the second time in two weeks, Mr. Trump spoke carefully from a prepared script. Having faced criticism throughout the race for factual exaggerations and outright falsehoods, Mr. Trump’s aides circulated a copy of the speech with 128 footnotes documenting its claims.
Still, Mr. Trump could not resist the occasional ad-libbed line to skewer Mrs. Clinton or boast of his own achievements. He took credit for pressuring Mrs. Clinton to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, though at the time she faced far greater pressure from a primary challenge on the left, from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Deserting his script, Mr. Trump added that he had pushed Mrs. Clinton to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” despite her inclination to avoid it in the past.
But absent from the speech was any other talk of terrorism or even a single mention of immigration, two issues that have galvanized support for his campaign.
The Clinton campaign struck back at Mr. Trump, attacking his credibility as a critic of free trade and outsourcing on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a populist Democrat who is viewed as a potential running mate for Mrs. Clinton, accused Mr. Trump of hypocrisy for taking a hard line on trade while doing business himself in other countries.
“With all of his personal experience profiting from making products overseas, Trump’s the perfect expert to talk about outsourcing,” Mr. Brown said, reciting a list of Trump products, from suits to picture frames, that he said were made in other countries. “We know just in my state alone where Donald Trump could have gone to make these things,” he added.
And Mr. Trump drew a cold response from traditionally Republican-leaning interests as well for his heated attacks on international trade agreements. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spends millions of dollars in federal elections, almost entirely in support of Republican candidates, criticized Mr. Trump’s speech on Twitter and claimed that his policies would hurt the economy.
“Even under best case scenario, Trump’s tariffs would strip us of at least 3.5 million jobs,” the group wrote in one Twitter message.
But in spite of such rebukes from Republican interests, Mr. Trump’s positions on trade remain some of his most constant and steadfast policies, ones he has been consistent on throughout his campaign.
At nearly every campaign rally, Mr. Trump has consistently knocked trade deals with China as unfair to the American worker, so frequently as to make his percussive pronunciation of China a hallmark of impersonators, and promised to impose heavy tariffs against the country as a way to even out the “deal.”
Mr. Trump appeared in his speech to pre-empt criticism from economists and business groups that have argued his policy proposals would lead to a damaging trade war with China and perhaps other countries.
“We already have a trade war,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, departing from his prepared remarks. “And we’re losing, badly.”
Mr. Trump, who has struggled for months to win support from the conservative business community, planned to follow the speech with a fund-raiser in West Virginia hosted by the coal executive Robert E. Murray. He was also scheduled to address a rally in eastern Ohio, another crucial state in the general election and one that Mr. Trump lost in the primary to Gov. John Kasich.
To win that state in November, Mr. Trump hopes to outflank Mrs. Clinton with economically distressed voters who may have voted Democratic in the past. Trade remains an issue that both resonates with Mr. Trump’s core supporters and stirs up populist voters across party lines.
In a nod to potential crossover voters, Mr. Trump quoted Mr. Sanders by name in criticizing Mrs. Clinton.
Though he dwelled at greatest length on what he described as the damaging economic consequences of globalization, Mr. Trump also laced his remarks with broader nationalist language, arguing that the United States would lose its sovereignty and national pride by negotiating too freely with the world.
“They get the expansion. We get the joblessness,” Mr. Trump said, of trade deals with foreign countries. “That’s the way it works — not going to happen anymore.”