Dan DiMicco, senior trade policy adviser to the Trump campaign and the former chairman and CEO of Nucor Steel, contends that major trade deals like NAFTA have essentially killed free trade in the U.S.
[Daily News| August 22, 2016 | Inside US Trade]
DiMicco – who left Nucor in 2012 and was named trade adviser to Trump in June – writes in the Charlotte Observer “there is no such thing as free trade today. Instead, our workers and our domestic manufacturers are at the mercy of trade negotiators that keep selling this country out for short term gain and long run disaster.”
DiMicco contends that his experience in the steel industry showed him the challenges of competing against China, which he says “continues to dump millions of tons of steel into world markets well below the cost of production – and cheat America out of its jobs and factories.”
Trump, he contends, “understands the threat China poses to the U.S. economy, American workers and American companies like Nucor. Hillary Clinton simply does not.”
DiMicco hews to Trump’s standard complaints about NAFTA and deals with South Korea and other countries to blame Bill and Hillary Clinton for destroying jobs and closing factories.
Then he gets to what he calls the “Trump Trade Doctrine,” which he states as:
Enter into no trade deal unless it increases our GDP growth rate, decreases our trade deficit, and strengthens our manufacturing base.
DiMicco also promises that Trump will crack down on “cheating” countries with “stiff, defensive tariffs.”
“This is not ‘protectionism,’ as Clintonites claim,” he contends. “It is common sense.”
