Clinton Tells Manufacturing Policy at Campaign Stop

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Hillary Clinton’s campaign stop Saturday night at M7 Technologies focused on manufacturing and education policy as she praised the innovative work of the company that hosted her visit and the dedication of public school teachers, many of whom were in the audience.

The event drew an estimated 500 to the plant in the Ohio Works Industrial Park and was streamed online by WFMJ, WKBN and WYTV.

In 2012, M-7 was the site of the announcement that Youngstown had been selected by the Obama Administration for the creation of the nation’s first manufacturing hub, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which today is known as America Makes.

“What makes America work is manufacturing,” Clinton began.

“I just had a real quick look at some of the technology here at M7, technology that’s so far advanced that if we really cooperated and built up the [additive] manufacturing hub [in Youngstown], we’re going to have a manufacturing renaissance,” she said.

“I believe we’ve got to support small businesses that are on the cutting edge, like this one.”

In the crowd were a few hecklers who tried to interrupt Clinton. One man shouted something about cell phones causing cancer. Another could be heard periodically shouting “Bernie.”

Police escorted one of the hecklers out of the building.

If Clinton were bothered by interruptions, she certainly didn’t show it, at one point saying that while she respected a heckler, “I hope he’ll let us talk about manufacturing.”

Clinton promised if elected president she would appoint a “trade prosecutor with a squad of inspectors and investigators” to enforce trade agreements, and that is “particularly important for the steel and auto industry,” she said.

“We are not going to be at the mercy of any country,” she vowed.

“We are going to stop China or anybody else from dumping steel into our markets, undermining our businesses and our workers.”

Clinton has proven politically vulnerable on trade issues, most vividly in the state of Michigan where she was upset last week by her rival for the Democratic Party nomination, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders is scheduled to hold a rally Monday morning at the Covelli Centre.

She underscored her vote, as a senator representing New York, in favor of the domestic auto industry’s bailout, drawing a contrast with Sanders, although not by name.

“There are some folks who just can’t stand the facts,” she said.

Regarding the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which she called “the gold standard” of trade deals when she served as President Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton said she subsequently decided to oppose TPP “when I saw what was in it. It was clear to me there were too many loopholes for folks to take advantage of,” she said.

Clinton went on to outline her commitment to rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, which would create millions of jobs, she said, and “to fight climate change with clean renewable energy jobs.”

She discussed education policy and the nation’s failure to “provide the support disadvantaged kids need.” She told of speaking with a teacher who related how some children come to school on the coldest days of the year wearing only a T-shirt  and then promptly fall asleep.

Regarding “K to 12,” she said, “how about this for an idea – some TLC for our public schools.”

She ended her speech by pointing to the economic accomplishments of her husband’s administration, and how U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan and U.S. Sherrod Brown – both of who were at tonight’s rally – had campaigned earlier today with Bill Clinton.

Brown asked the former president, she related, what he had brought to Washington that had enabled robust economic growth and a balanced budget.

“I brought arithmetic,” she quoted her husband as saying.

“Your numbers have to add up,” she said, again alluding to Sanders. “It’s easy to make promises you can’t keep. But you have to produce if you’re president.”

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.