“If you were lucky, your neighbor's job got shipped to a foreign country while your tax dollars got shipped to fraudsters.”
Vance recounts specific case of computer programmer Kevin Flanagan losing his job at a bank.
“A computer programmer, not a mill worker, a computer programmer by the name of Kevin Flanagan was let go at the bank that he worked at.”
Vance describes American workers being forced to train their foreign replacements before losing their jobs.
“In other cases, American workers didn't just have their jobs destroyed, they got told they were being replaced by a foreign worker, and then they had to train that worker before they got replaced.”
Vance argues politicians and private sector cronies got rich building overseas while American communities got poor.
“Our politicians and frankly the cronies in the private sector, people who didn't wanna build in America like Cleveland Cliffs, but people who were happy to build overseas, they got rich and communities like this one got poor.”
Vance argues worker replacement by foreign labor was the desired outcome of American elites, not an accident.
“Being replaced by foreign workers, in other words, it was not an accident, my friends. It was the desired outcome of a generation of American elites.”
Vance says every Democrat voted against eliminating taxes on tips, Social Security, overtime, and American-made car loans.
“Every single Democrat, everyone voted against no taxes on tips, voted against no taxes on Social Security, voted against no taxes on overtime, and voted against no taxes on car loans so long as those cars were made right here in America.”
Vance cites economists linking opioid crisis to locations where jobs were shipped overseas.
“Now economists have measured the ways in which the opioid crisis exploded in the very locations where jobs were shipped overseas.”
Vance quotes Wall Street Journal editorial writer linking free trade and capital movement to free movement of labor.
“He said someone who believes, this is a quote, in the free trade and free movements of capital, they declared, will quite naturally believe in the free movement of labor.”
Vance characterizes the old consensus as prioritizing corporate profits and foreign workers over citizens.
“What we really needed, they told us, was just to juice the short term profits of a few big corporations. We needed to open that border and prioritize foreign workers over our own citizens.”
Vance claims Canadian dairy enters Maine at 0% tariffs while Maine dairy faces 250% tariffs.
“If you buy dairy, cheese, butter, milk that comes from Canada into Maine, you probably are buying a product that has 0% tariffs on it.”
Vance says Canada made unreasonable last-minute demands despite him thinking deal was reached.
“And what happened at the very end is they came in with a bunch of unreasonable last minute demands. I frankly thought we had a deal.”
Vance accuses Canada of applying ridiculous tariffs on Maine products without expecting retaliation.
“They apply ridiculous tariffs and other non tariff duties on Maine products coming into to Canada, and they don't expect Maine or anybody else to fight back, we're sick of that.”