Group Puts Anti Free Trade Messages On South Carol
Columbia, SC, Jan. 13--Billboards in the state's largest cities are prodding voters in the Feb. 3 Democratic primary to make trade policy a top issue, according to The State, Columbia, SC.
"Have you lost your job to free trade and offshoring yet?" the billboards ask.
A manufacturing group led by Roger Milliken is paying for ten billboards with the message.
"It's to plant that question in people's minds. We believe free-trade policies are causing people to lose their jobs," said Lloyd Wood, spokesman for the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, which is co-chaired by Milliken.
South Carolina lost 47,100 jobs in the 12 months ending in November, a 2.6 percent drop. Factories shed 18,900 jobs, a 6.5 percent drop.
The coalition argues that U.S. trade policies allowed China and other nations unfair advantages that wiped out American jobs.
Many economists, such as USC's Doug Woodward, defend free-trade policies, saying the recession, not imports, is the cause of lost jobs. But Woodward said free trade is a tough sell in hard times.
"A lot of the public is willing to accept that argument: blame the job losses on the foreigners," Woodward said.
Unemployment bounced between 6 and 7 percent last year in the state, compared with rates that exceeded ten percent in the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s. In the past recessions, imports were blamed for job losses but forgotten during subsequent economic booms, he said.
