Oct. 23, 2019 8:30p
(AP/WGTD)---Vice President Mike Pence paid Wisconsin a visit on Wednesday to tout a pending trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.
Hundreds of people stood waiting for Pence to speak at a Unline warehouse at Lakeview Corp. Park in Pleasant Prairie. The shipping and packaging materials distributor was founded by Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, Republican megadonors.
Pence came seeking support for passing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Trump's plan to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.
"I'm here today because we still have work to do," Pence said during his speech. "We have an incredible oppurtunitiy before us."
The USMCA was signed by President Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and former-Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto back in November 2018. However, for the agreement to take effect it must be ratified by Congress and the Canadian government.
"This is why I came to Wisconsin," Pence said. "To say it is time for the Democrats in congress to put Wisconsin jobs and Wisconsin workers first."
Pence said that he wants the USMCA approved by the end of this year.
Dave Daniels, a board member of Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and owner of Mighty Grand Dairy in the Town of Brighton, and U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman also spoke at the event, voicing there support for USMCA.
The agreement is expected to bring back jobs to the U.S. and increase exports to Canada and Mexico. American First Policies, a pro-Trump nonprofit group that hosted the event reports that since Trump took office, unemployment in Wisconsin has decreased from 3.6 percent to 3.1 percent and Wisconsin goods exports support around 111,000 jobs. The group says the agreement would maintain tariff-free access to the Mexican and Canadian markets for American producers and it will also take away trade restrictions in place from NAFTA.
"Wisconsin's top two export markets are acutally Canada and Mexico," Pence explained. "So do the math everybody, the USMCA is a win for Wisconsin and a win for America."
But the president's policy is not without opponents in the state. Cassidy Geoghegan, the Wisconsin outreach director with Priorities USA, says that while Wisconsin's stakeholders and policy makers will decide if the USMCA would benefit the state, the damage from Trump's trade war is already done.
"You can just ask farmers who have had to sell thier cows, or factory workers who are now out of thier jobs," Geoghegan said. "Trump's trade war has wreaked havoc on to the lives and communities in Wisconsin and people are taking notice."
According to Priorities USA Wisconsin, the state led the nation in farm bankruptcies and Wisconsin had the second highest number of manufacturing job losses of any state in the past year.
"What you didn't hear from Pence today is that Wisconsinites are struggling because of Trump's trade war," Geoghegan said.
Still Pence predicted the trade pact would eventually be adopted.
"When speaker Nancy Pelosi puts the USMCA on the floor of Congress, it's going to pass," Pence said at the end of his speech. "It's going to pass on a bipartisan bases because when you get past all of the politics and all of the posturing, people know it's a win."
Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate since 1984 to win Wisconsin, and the state is important to his re-election campaign.
Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2019, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.