Exclusive — Rep. Marlin Stutzman: Trump Has ‘Reset the Global Stage When it Comes to Trade’

President Donald Trump has “reset the global stage when it comes to trade,” and these trade deals are “huge for the Midwest,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.

“It’s good anytime there’s fair trade, you know?” the congressman said following President Donald Trump’s announcement over the weekend of a historic trade deal with the European Union.

“I remember growing up 70s and 80s, and then, of course, the — in the 90s, the NAFTA was supposed to be great for all of us, and I live primarily in agriculture and manufacturing, and we saw our rural towns that were really strong on — in manufacturing just slowly dying away,” he said.

“And you know, it’s one thing for a company to move to another country because there’s a competitive advantage there, you know, because of the minerals or some sort of resource or, you know, they can have closer access to steel or their markets. But when it’s just simply a competitive advantage because of the trade policy, we just let people go, basically,” the lawmaker explained

“I mean, I have counties that, you know, their high school was 6,000 students back in the 80s, and today it’s 3,000 students. And so, you know, there’s been a slow decline, and now that President Trump has, he’s just basically told the United States, ‘Look, we’re just letting our companies leave,’” Stutzman continued, explaining that Trump has “come in and reset the global stage when it comes to trade.”l

“And this is going to be huge for the Midwest,” he added. “I mean, I’m already seeing it in manufacturing in my district, where companies that compete directly with maybe Turkey on steel prices or aluminum prices, or China — of course, China can manufacture billions and billions of parts that we just can’t compete with. So this is going to be big for us.”