Vance slams China, NAFTA trade deals, pledges to protect U.S. jobs

Republican vice presidential nominee and first-term senator JD Vance made a populist, America First case against President Joe Biden Wednesday night, tying him to trade deals that cost American jobs and pledging to stop the replacement of American workers with immigrant labor.

In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, the 39-year-old Ohioan slammed Biden for supporting permanent normal trade relations with China and the North American Free Trade Agreement, deals that significantly benefited U.S. farm exports but led to a loss in U.S. manufacturing jobs.

“When I was in fourth grade a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to Mexico,” Vance said.

“When I was in high school, that same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal and destroyed even more good-paying American middle-class manufacturing jobs.”

Vance went on to slam Biden for supporting the invasion of Iraq under the Republican administration of George W. Bush.

“For half a century he’s been the champion of every major policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer,” Vance said of Biden.

JD Vance after finishing his vice presidential nomination speech Wednesday evening at the Republican National Convention. (Photo: Lydia Johnson) 

He also reiterated concerns he has expressed as a senator about U.S. businesses using immigrant workers to drive down their labor costs. Trump renegotiated NAFTA, incorporating elements of the Trans-Pacific Partnership after he withdrew the U.S. from that deal.

“We’re done importing more labor. We’re going to fight for American citizens and American jobs again,” Vance said.

At another point, he said, “We need a leader who is not in the pocket of big business but answers to the working man — union and non-union alike.”

And in a message that was probably directed at older generations of his own party, Vance said, “If this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation, and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first.” 

Vance was a harsh critic of Trump when he ran for and won the presidency in 2016, but Wednesday night he hailed Trump as a hero. Among other things, he said wages “went through the roof” when Trump was president. “Just imagine what’s going to happen when we give him four more years.”

JD Vance after finishing his vice presidential nomination speech Wednesday evening at the Republican National Convention. (Photo: Lydia Johnson)

​As speaker after speaker has done during the convention, Vance also praised Trump’s response to Saturday’s assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.

“They said he was a tyrant. They said he must be stopped at all cost. But how did he respond? He called for national unity,” Vance said.

To set up his populist message, Vance spent some time recounting the rough childhood in small-town Ohio that was the basis of his best-selling book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” later made into a Netflix movie.

He also introduced his mother, announcing that she had been “clean and sober” for 10 years, spawning a chant among the Fiserv Forum crowd, “JD’s mom! JD’s mom!”

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