Rep. Marcy Kaptur on what Trump doesn't get about trade
Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat from Ohio, has spent most of her decades-long career in the House of Representatives arguing for what she believes would be better trade practices that would benefit American workers.
Sound familiar?
President Trump is leading the U.S. into re-negotiating trade deals using the same message, and Kaptur says he's on the right track. She doesn't believe, however, that he has a feel for "how complicated these trade deals are."
"When you're tough you also have to be smart," said told CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett on the latest episode of "The Takeout" podcast. "And I think that the president's sort of meat-ax approach isn't going to meet the challenge the continent faces."
One of those challenges, she says, is how to fix the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal put together in 1993 to facilitate trade among Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
"If this flawed agreement passes in the months and years ahead, as plant relocations and production moves to Mexico in greater numbers," Kaptur argued on the House floor in 1993, "and people in our nation are hurt and those in Mexico are co-exploited, it is on this floor of Congress that we will be voices for those who bear the pain of NAFTA."
President Clinton ultimately signed NAFTA into law later that year.
Today, she stands firm in her belief the agreement was "terribly flawed" to begin with, and is calling on Mr. Trump to travel with her to Mexico to see the first-hand effects.
"And the human the price of this, the trafficking that goes on in labor related to it – the trafficking that goes on in terms of prostitution – it is disgusting. It is uncivilized. And we have not faced that. And the president -- I would challenge the president of the United States to travel with me. I will show him."
Kaptur proposes a plan that involves Canada, Australia, and European nations creating a trade union.
"And into that union we invite the struggling countries of the world to raise up their standard of living, not lower theirs or ours further. That was not done," Kaptur argued.
Kaptur also said she believes NAFTA and the scourge in opioid abuse are "absolutely related."
"They tried to do it the cheap way out. They wanted the negotiators at that time wanted cheap labor. Well I'll tell you what. Look what we got now. Here on our continent, we have the largest opioid, heroin, fentanyl crisis I have ever experienced in my life in this country."
Earlier this month, Kaptur became the longest-serving woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, and says she will continue on as long as she needs to, to ensure better, safer trade practices to improve Americans' way of life.
For more of Major's conversation with Rep. Marcy Kaptur, how she prevailed in politics despite the feeling "no one" in her party wanted to help her get elected, download "The Takeout" podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or Spotify. New episodes are available every Friday morning.
Also, you can watch "The Takeout" on CBSN Friday and Saturday nights at 9pm ET/PT. For a full archive of "The Takeout" episodes, visit www.takeoutpodcast.com. And you can listen to "The Takeout" on select CBS News Radio affiliates (check your local listings).
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Producers: Arden Farhi, Katiana Krawchenko
