Kasich lauds benefits of free trade

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich said in a televised town hall in Milwaukee, Wisc. he favors open trade, but would crack down on countries who try to game the system for their advantage.    Ohio Gov. John Kasich took a strong pro-trade stance in a televised town hall in Milwaukee Tuesday night and cast the issue in national security terms.
   By doing so, he markedly contrasted himself with the populist sentiment currently coursing through the Republican and Democratic parties.
   Donald Trump, on the Republican side, and Democrat Bernie Sanders have loudly denounced free trade deals, saying they have been responsible for outsourcing jobs and gutting the U.S. manufacturing sector while other countries skirt the rules to import their products into the United States at lower prices.
   Both candidates oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that would closely link a dozen Pacific Rim economies, forcing Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton to also announce her opposition to the deal.
   “We need to have open and free trade,” Kasich said, noting that one in five Americans is employed in a job that is directly or indirectly related to trade and that Ohio has more than 63,000 new manufacturing jobs. Ohio is one of the so-called “rust-belt” states that has seen many manufacturing plants shuttered in the last 25 years for various reasons.
   Competition from Japanese car makers, for example, has forced the U.S. auto industry to innovate and become much stronger today, Kasich said.
   The former congressman said the key is for a president to act quickly when countries dump goods at below-market price, or otherwise violate trade rules.
   Echoing recent comments by Clinton, he called for an early-warning system that would allow a quick response to anti-dumping because under the current process the investigation takes so long that the damage to domestic producers is too late to reverse.
   Cheating by countries such as China is equivalent to a football team getting five downs instead of four to advance the ball downfield, Kasich said.
   “We should not put up with countries when they cheat. But that does not keep us from embracing the notion of open and free trade,” the governor said.
   “What we basically do when we trade is we’re the most open country, and everybody else has barriers. So what we try to do is to get their barriers down so we get our products into their country,” he added. “But there’s another element of this. You worry about the Chinese and their growing strength, particularly in Asia? Make a trade agreement, integrate ourselves with our friends in Asia who can become a bulwark against the strength of the Chinese.”