Midwest Democrats go all-in on tough-on-China approach

Democrats running for Senate in the Midwest are embracing a tough-on-China approach to trade, working to take back a platform that has been embraced by Republicans since President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. 

In Ohio this week, Rep. Tim Ryan’s (D) Senate campaign rolled out an ad bemoaning how China is “out-manufacturing us left and right” and saying “America can never be dependent on Communist China.”

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes’s (D) own Senate campaign released a manufacturing plan last month and cited China in his call for renegotiating trade deals. 

“Whatever China can do, we can do better,” Barnes wrote in the plan. 

And in Missouri, Democratic Senate candidate Luca Kunce went on the offense against the state’s GOP Senate field, criticizing them for their ties to China in an ad late last year.

“In Iraq and Afghanistan, we’d call that aiding the enemy,” Kunce, a veteran, says in the 35-second spot. 

Democrats are quick to point out that figures like Ryan and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) have warned about growing economic dependency on China for years. In 2012, Brown released an ad in which he highlighted legislation that addressed “efforts to protect Ohio jobs from cheating China.” 

In 2016, Trump took a particularly aggressive stance when it came to foreign trade policy, especially pertaining to China, and other Republicans have followed suit.

But Democrats, particularly in the Midwest, say a tough stance against China is crucial in a region of the country where China has had an outsized impact — from gobbling up farm fields to putting a squeeze on manufacturing. 

“One of the reasons why [Trump] was successful was because he co-opted a Democratic message, an economic message, in places like the Rust Belt where these messages were being focused upon by Democrats for years,” said former Ohio state Senate Minority Leader Capri Cafaro (D).

Brown’s 2018 campaign manager also said the focus made sense.

“A simple truth is, with inflation and supply chain issues, there is a great deal of blame to be placed on China,” Justin Barasky said. 

Ryan, who is seen as the clear front-runner in Ohio’s Democratic Senate primary, spoke about Trump’s past messaging on China and international trade in an interview with Spectrum News in Ohio last month. 

“Donald Trump wasn’t wrong about everything,” Ryan told the outlet. “He was right about China and the threat, and he was right about wanting to renegotiate NAFTA. And I think it is helping.”

Barnes has also taken a firm stance on China when it comes to the state of manufacturing in Wisconsin. 

In addition to rolling out his manufacturing plan last week, Barnes released an economic plan addressing small businesses in February. In the plan, Barnes calls for “bad trade deals and anti-competitive practices” to be addressed to help Wisconsin businesses compete with China. 

Barnes has also invoked his own personal connection to manufacturing, citing his father’s work at a General Motors plant in Milwaukee and his grandfather’s work as a steelworker at A.O. Smith. 

“Certainly bad trade deals with China, trying to compete with China, China sort of cheating the game, has really negatively impacted manufacturing here at home and it is definitely one of the things that [Barnes] attributes to this decline in manufacturing and something we need to get a handle on in order to rebuild manufacturing in Wisconsin,” said Barnes’s communications director, Maddy McDaniel. 

Barnes’s Democratic primary opponents have also cited China in their campaign messaging. Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson has said China is “eating our lunch” when it comes to trade, while Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry vowed to “stand up to China” in a TV ad.

Kunce, a populist progressive candidate, has zeroed in on Chinese corporate ownership of Missouri farmland, which began after the state’s lawmakers lifted a ban on foreign ownership of Missouri’s agricultural land in 2013. The move took place weeks before Chinese conglomerate Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. bought Smithfield Foods. 

In an op-ed for Missouri’s Springfield News-Leader published in November, Kunce likened the lawmakers’ move to lift the ban to treason. 

Kunce and other critics of the move say it has pushed the state’s family-owned and independent farms off of what once was their land. 

“For Missourians, we’re not just playing on this weird culture war territory, we’re actually talking about something that is very hyper-local,” said Connor Lounsbury, Kunce’s deputy campaign manager. 

“The idea is that when you have these smaller family farmers and independent farmers, that money very much stayed in the community,” he continued. “The food you were creating, the business opportunities you were creating were directly for people in your community. 

Like Kunce, other Democrats have used the issue to hit their GOP opponents. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ran an ad earlier this year accusing incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) of “rewarding companies that outsource to China.” The claim stems from fears that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which Johnson supported, would outsource jobs overseas. PolitiFact rated the claim as “false,” saying there is no direct evidence that the law resulted in jobs moving overseas. 

Meanwhile, in Ohio, Democrats have pointed to alleged business ties between members of the crowded GOP primary and China. 

“All of the out-of-touch millionaires pretend to be tough on China on one side of their mouth but are all cashing in with China on the other,” said an Ohio Democratic source. “Ohioans can spot phonies who won’t protect their jobs when they see one.”

But Democrats will certainly have their work cut out from them in Wisconsin, Ohio and Missouri. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the Wisconsin Senate race as a “toss-up,” while the Ohio race is rated as “lean Republican.” The Senate race in Missouri is rated “solid Republican.”

Two years ago, President Biden narrowly defeated then-President Trump in the presidential race in Wisconsin by roughly a point. However, Trump outperformed Biden in Ohio and Missouri by just over 8 points and 15 points, respectively. 

Biden himself has zeroed in on the importance of domestically manufactured goods, vowing earlier this month to direct more than $600 million in federal spending to U.S. manufactured goods. The administration’s hope is that the funds will help alleviate Washington’s dependence on Beijing. 

“One of the ways that you stand up to China and you focus on advocating for workers and making things here and creating jobs here is the policies that you support,” Barasky, Brown’s 2018 campaign manager, said.