PRESIDENTIAL RACE Sen. Kerry touts fair trade in Valley visit

If elected, the senator said he would toughen NAFTA.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
STRUTHERS -- The Democratic presidential front-runner said the North American Free Trade Agreement isn't bad, it just needs to be properly enforced.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts told The Vindicator on Tuesday that he doesn't regret his vote on NAFTA. Some labor and political leaders say the treaty, which increased the flow of trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico, is largely responsible for the decline in manufacturing jobs in this country.
"In hindsight, NAFTA should have been enforced and tweaked, and we ought to fix it," Kerry said after speaking to workers at Astro Shapes Inc. in Struthers. "NAFTA had side agreements on labor and the environment, and those agreements haven't been enforced. As president, I'd enforce them."
Kerry said he plans to review all of the country's trade agreements during his first four months in office to see what's working and what isn't.
Visiting closed steel mill
Kerry spent more than four hours Tuesday in the Mahoning Valley, landing at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport about 12:40 p.m. He and a large motorcade of reporters, staffers and police first stopped at the former Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Struthers Works location, which closed more than 25 years ago.
While at the former steel mill, Kerry spoke to three RMI Titanium Co. employees who have been locked out of the plant since October, as well as Bill Burga, Ohio AFL-CIO president, and Gary Steinbeck, assistant district director of the United Steelworkers of America's District 1.
Todd Weddell, president of USWA Local 2155, RMI's union, said he and the others told Kerry about being locked out, and urged him to support and enforce fair trade agreements.
Weddell said NAFTA has hurt Ohio's economy, but he will give Kerry the chance to prove himself.
"He'll be nowhere near as bad as Bush," he said.
Impressed
Randy Velk and Dale McCormick, the two other locked-out RMI employees who spoke to Kerry at the former Sheet and Tube, said they liked that the senator told them he'd level the playing field for American companies to compete with foreign ones, but were concerned that he supported NAFTA.
Even so, the two said they were impressed by Kerry.
"All across our country, workers are struggling," Kerry told Astro Shapes workers. "No president can stand in front of you and promise that he can stop every single job from going overseas, but a president can guarantee you a level playing field that allows you to compete fairly."
In a telephone interview, U .S. Sen. George Voinovich pegged Kerry as a Northeast liberal who doesn't understand manufacturing or the Midwest.
"I think John Kerry compared to George Bush would continue to cripple our Ohio economy," he said. "The people who've represented the northeastern part of this country have not helped it."
Fighting for workers
Kerry said the Bush administration has not fought for working-class people.
"Workers deserve a president who will fight for jobs in the United States of America and for American workers," he said.
If elected, Kerry said he would eliminate the Bush tax cut for the wealthy, and the first bill he would introduce would provide health care for all Americans using that money.
"I'm going to have to fight to get Congress to pass it," he said.
Kerry also said he would reduce the national debt by one-half during the first four years of his administration, and get back to the business of creating jobs and respecting workers.
"This fight is about fairness in our country because the gap between the haves and have-nots is getting wider and wider," he said of the 2004 presidential race. "If you liked the eight years of Bill Clinton, you'll love the first four years of the Kerry administration."
Kerry's top challenger for the Democratic nominee, U.S. Sen. John Edwards, spoke Sunday in Youngstown, and said trade is the fundamental difference between the two. Edwards said he supports fair trade, and Kerry's voting record shows he supports free trade.
skolnick@vindy.com