On a trip to Ohio this week, President Trump laid out six priorities for his second term, aiming to restore the high-powered economy that his administration created only to see devastated by the Chinese coronavirus and ensuing lockdowns. Together, these promises show a laser focus on defeating the virus and creating jobs and opportunity for all Americans.
Trump has been criticized as of late by the corporate media for spending too much time attacking his opponent Joe Biden and not enough time outlining what his goals are for the next four years. This detailed plan should put such concerns to bed and serve as a foundation for his message in the final months of the election. Here are the six promises.
1. Defeat The Chinese Virus
This should come as no surprise. The Chinese coronavirus has become the central issue of the election. In addition to a sharp increase in testing over recent months and the development of treatments for virus victims, the president touted his administration’s effort to secure a vaccine by year-end. Once thought impossible, many experts now agree that Operation Warp Speed as the effort is known is on track to do just that.
In his remarks the president noted the virus should never have been allowed to leave China, but that under his leadership we are fighting it back, and that unlike earlier in the year, we now know “how to pinpoint it, and who to protect.” Ultimately containment of the virus is essential to the further plans he outlined. Each a plank in rebuilding the American economy.
2. Restore Our Country’s Prosperity
Trump’s promise to voters on this issue is that he did it before and he can do it again. The very Whirlpool plant that he was speaking at, he argued, was a testament to the success of the policies that created massive growth before the virus struck. Having replaced NAFTA, long a thorn in the side of Rust Belt states like Ohio, with a new trade agreement more fair to American workers, he assured the crowd that his earlier success would be replicated.
3. Turn America into the Drugstore of the World
An important piece of news floated under the radar last week as the Trump Administration invoked the Defense Production Act to provide loans for a major Kodak facility in upstate New York, where the manufacturer will convert to creating the ingredients for pharmaceuticals. The process is expedited by the similarities between drug and film chemical manufacturing.
As a result, domestic production of these ingredients will increase from 10 to 25 percent of our total need in the next five years. That isn’t just a jobs creator. It also creates medical security for the nation that has let its own lack of manufacturing make it dangerously dependent on countries like Communist China to provide life-saving drugs.
4. Onshore Manufacturing Jobs
Until Trump ran for president in 2016, Americans had spent almost 30 years being told by both parties that manufacturing jobs were gone for good and not coming back. Some kind of new high tech economy was promised, an early iteration of “learn to code.” Trump opposed the globalism of that neoliberal position and he said “On January 23, 2018 at my desk in the Oval Office, I signed an order to impose a 50 percent tariff on all foreign-made washing machines.” The workers watching understood just how important policies like that are to their industry and their jobs.
5. Bring Back Factory Jobs
Trump’s goal for a second term is not only to keep good paying American jobs here in America, but to attract even more factory jobs into communities that have suffered for years under former policies. As the trade deals fell, Trump argued the jobs came back. “We made extraordinary progress in reversing the dangerous tide of globalism. Over a period of four to five years this took place. Think of it, four to five years, what we have done is a miracle,” he remarked.
6. Put American Workers First
This final promise for his final term is really a summation of all the previous ones. After more than a generation of being ignored by administration after administration, Trump’s first term laid groundwork for American job growth that he says he can build on. If Trump can hammer home this message, especially in battleground states, then Joe Biden is going to have to escape the basement sooner rather than later to deliver his own message and explain why a return to the failed globalist policies of the past are going to work if he tries them again.