Pennsylvania — (CNN) Donald Trump on Tuesday trashed U.S. policies that encouraged globalization in a speech focused on economic resurgence before a colorful backdrop of crushed aluminum cans.
“Our politicians have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization — moving our jobs, our wealth and our factories to Mexico and overseas,” he said, speaking from prepared remarks and using teleprompters.
“Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy. I used to be one of them. Hate to say it, but I used to be one of them.”
Trump slammed likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for being supported by powerful elites “who rigged the system” and vowed that under a Clinton presidency, “nothing is going to change.”
“The inner cities will remain poor. the factories will remain closed,” Trump said at Alumisource, a raw material producer for the aluminum and steel industries in Monessen, Pennsylvania, an hour south of Pittsburgh. “The special interests will remain firmly in control.”
Trump accused his opponents of running a “campaign of fear and intimidation” to scare Americans out of voting for the change Trump said he embodies.
“We can either give in to Hillary Clinton’s campaign of fear, or we can choose to believe again in America,” Trump said.
A senior Trump aide told CNN the speech is “the most detailed economic address he has given so far.”
Trump has frequently lamented the economic slowdown working-class communities in America have faced as a result of a drop in American manufacturing, particularly in the last decade.
Early on in his yearlong campaign, Trump singled out specific American companies — notably Ford and Nabisco — for plans to move some of their manufacturing plants abroad.
Slamming Nabisco for building a factory in Mexico, Trump has vowed he’s “not eating Oreos anymore.”
But Trump’s opponents have slammed what they see as hypocrisy, pointing out that the billionaire has manufactured many of his own products, like his Trump-branded clothing items that are made in China and Mexico.
“Interestingly, Trump’s own products are made in a lot of countries that aren’t named America,” Clinton said in a speech last week. “I’d love for him to explain how all of that fits with his talk about ‘America First.’”
Trump’s speech also comes as his campaign has hinted at a shift in one of his most controversial policies — temporarily banning all foreign Muslims from the U.S. Tuesday’s remarks are also on the same day as the House Select Committee on Benghazi drops its report on the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which Republicans have used to attack Clinton’s leadership as secretary of state.
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