Trump’s campaign taps into voter’s frustration

World Today

Political observers in the U.S. and around the world are keeping tabs on Republican candidate Donald Trump as he moves closer to securing his party’s nomination.

When asked to explain his popularity, some say the Republican front-runner is tapping into voter frustration.

CCTV’s Roza Kazan reports.

More than 2,000 people will lose their jobs when air-conditioner maker Carrier shuts two of its plants in the state of Indiana.

Dawn Martin, a worker at the plant and mother of five, points to the North American Trade Agreement.

“I blame the trade deals, and I blame corporate greed, because they want to make lots and lots of money at our expense and the tax payers expense.”

That’s why she says she supports Republican presidential candidate, New York billionaire Donald Trump.

The workers here are angry because they say when Carrier moves their jobs to Mexico, finding another job with similar benefits and a good salary for them will be next to impossible.

Trump says, if he’s president, he’ll force Carrier to stay in the United States.

“Every single air conditioning unit that you build and send across our border, you’re going to pay a 35% tax on that unit,” said Trump at a rally earlier this year.

Analysts say Trump has tapped into a sense of betrayal felt by some workers.

“One thing Donald Trump is doing is speaking to the hopes and fears and needs of many blue-collar Americans,” Tim Swarens, opinion editor at the The Indianapolis Star said. “They’ve seen wages stagnate and he’s speaking to those concerns and those fears.”

But trade economists believe that while the share of U.S. labor in manufacturing has decreased, output has gone up and companies are looking for more high-skilled labor. Mostly in the computer field.

Economists say Trump’s promise to shut off trade agreements as a way to bring back jobs misdiagnoses the problem. They say moving lower-wage jobs to other countries like Mexico is actually saving entire industries. For the workers at Carrier, that’s little consolation.