Democratic candidate Ed Fallon is blasting Congressman Leonard Boswell for supporting a series of international trade agreements. Fallon accuses Boswell, his opponent in the June primary, of bowing to special interests when Boswell backed trade deals with Peru, Chili and Singapore.
"All…fall woefully short in terms of their ability to protect American jobs and to assure that workers in the countries affected receive adequate wages and work in safe conditions," Fallon says.
Fallon promises that if elected, he will back fair trade rather than free trade and Fallon admits that may earn him the label of protectionist. "That’s not such a bad thing, especially in the environment that we’ve seen where so much employment, so many opportunities have fled our borders," Fallon says. Fallon says Boswell has too often sided with Republicans when it comes to trade issues. Fallon’s a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement, too, but Boswell was not in congress when NAFTA was ratified.
"All that’s really come from the free trade agreements we’ve seen is a destruction of the manufacturing base in the U.S., further emasculation of the economy in Mexico, further illegal immigration because of that and tremendous profits for the companies that helped craft the (trade) proposals," Fallon says. Fallon made his comments at a public hearing in West Des Moines on Wednesday morning that drew an audience of four. A spokesman for Boswell was not available Wednesday to respond to Fallon’s charges. Both Fallon and Boswell are from Des Moines.
A spokesman for Congressman Boswell says Boswell wasn’t in Congress when NAFTA was approved and he opposed CAFTA. In addition not only Republicans voted for the Peru Trade Agreement, so did Democratic Senators Kennedy and Kerry.