WARREN – Sen. Bernie Sanders is challenging President Donald Trump to deny federal contracts to General Motors until the company reopens shuttered plants.
The Democratic presidential contender accuses Trump of betraying the working people who got him elected.
If corporations like GM think we will allow them to throw American workers out on the streets and outsource jobs to Mexico to pay $2 an hour, then line up to get millions in federal contracts, they have another guess coming. Not going to happen!
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 14, 2019
The Vermont senator spent some time shoring up a large section of the “blue wall” that gave way in 2016 as millions of voters in Democratic strongholds like northeastern Ohio, Pennsylvania, southern Michigan and Wisconsin swung their support to Trump.
Campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania on Sunday, Sanders said good corporate citizenship by multinationals like GM should be a condition for getting business from Washington.
Sanders participated in a town hall meeting Sunday at Lordstown High School in Warren where he discussed a need to fight against unfair trade deals that undermine workers’ wages and enrich CEOs and the importance of rebuilding and strengthening unions.
Sanders told a crowd of several hundred people that if elected president, he would freeze government contracts to companies who shut down American factories to outsource jobs to lower-paying countries.
Sunday’s event was held not far from the now-idled Lordstown plant where General Motors had produced the Chevy Cruze sedan. GM closed the plant last month, saying it was responding to consumer demand for larger vehicle types.
Ohio Republican Party leaders held a press conference on the same spot earlier in the day to criticize Sanders’ “socialist” policies and defend Trump’s.