Two chunks of Philadelphia-area jobs have just left for Mexico. It's a situation that Donald Trump taps into effectively.
Pennsylvania's presidential primaries don't take place until April 26, but don't be surprised if Northeast Philadelphia scores big for Donald Trump -- and maybe Bernie Sanders -- based on news this week.
It's been reported that Carbone Industries, a supplier of brake calipers to the automotive industry, will ship 1,300 jobs from its two Philadelphia locations to Mexico.
You can't get a better illustration of the frustration that Trump taps into than the loss of more than 1,000 manufacturing jobs from a locally based company. To cite H. Ross Perot from his 1992 presidential campaign, that "giant sucking sound" you hear is jobs going across the border.
In addition, the job losses will occur in a neighborhood that's already been decimated by an icon that was familiar by smell, if not on sight, for anyone who traveled on Roosevelt Boulevard: Mondelez Global Inc., shut its Nabisco cookie and cracker bakery last May, idling 300 workers. Some of the production went south of the border.
Trump has already tweeted about the Carbone situation, saying that it is exactly what won't happen if he's president. Last year, made a point of Mondelez's U.S. factory closures, disclosing a personal Oreo boycott on word that some batches could be coming from Mexico rather than Chicago.
When job losses eviscerate neighborhoods, and are felt so viscerally by their residents, it may not matter if Trump has any real idea of how to stop the bleeding. Sanders, who also rails against trade agreements, may not have a solid solution, either.
Protectionist tariff legislation is complicated. It depends on who's being protected. One reason that confectionary companies, including Mondelez, are said to be poised to go to Mexico is because the cost of sugar there is not kept artificially high by controls designed to protect domestic growers.
More mainstream presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton and a raft of "free-trade" Republicans have disappointingly failed to preserve jobs, as well. You can't blame broad pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement that riled Perot 24 years ago for all the job shifts. When elected officials ignore that the manufacturing sector has taken it on the chin, however, all the Trump signs should be no surprise.
The federal government could do more by targeting current tax breaks toward companies that expand existing manufacturing plants. States, too, need to look at their substantial "goodie" programs.
Developers associated with Rowan University were just awarded $50 million in state credits for building a parking garage and privately owned student housing. It's legitimate to ask, if New Jersey is going to dole out billions of dollars in commercial tax credits, why they're laser-focused on projects like the Rowan one, or on moving jobs from into Camden from Evesham.
Has anybody ever considered using some of the incentives to keep jobs from moving from Jamesburg to Juarez?
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