Sen. Ron Johnson wasn’t yet willing to say whether he supports or opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, but he was quick to criticize his opponent in this year’s election for saying he’s against it.
In an interview broadcast Sunday on “UpFront with Mike Gousha,” the Republican from Oshkosh said he’s generally in favor of free trade, but added that he wants to get into more of the details of the agreement between the U.S. and 11 other countries that has been slammed by some as a boon for corporations at the expense of workers and the environment.
On the day the TPP was finalized last October, Democrat Russ Feingold, who is running for the seat he lost to Johnson in 2010, said it was “a raw deal written in secret for corporate interests at the expense of Wisconsin jobs.“
In the TV interview, Johnson fired away at Feingold’s stance.
“Did he read it? How can he have such a knee-jerk reaction? That’s not being very open-minded, is it?” Johnson said. “I’m going to actually look at it. I’m going to study it. I’m going to solicit feedback. I’m going to listen to people in terms of how it affects them and then I’ll make my decision.”
The full text of the 30-chapter agreement was released in November, and bipartisan opposition has shown that Congressional approval won’t come easily.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have said they oppose the deal, as has Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Johnson, meanwhile, said he needed more time to weigh the issues.
“It won’t be a perfect deal,” he said, “but in the end, trade benefits the world economy, which means it benefits America and American workers.”
Johnson, who trailed Feingold by 12 points in last month’s Marquette Law School Poll, also said the recent merger between Wisconsin-based Johnson Controls and Tyco International highlighted the “uncompetitive” tax code that’s hurting American companies.
Johnson Controls said it will save $150 million in taxes by reorganizing in Ireland in a corporate inversion deal that was slammed by Democrats.
Johnson put the blame on U.S. tax regulations.
“We’re the only country of the developed countries that actually taxes corporations’ income overseas,” Johnson said. “And that puts us at enormous disadvantage competitively, globally. But it also restricts U.S. companies from returning and repatriating those earnings so they can actually put them to work, for example, here in Wisconsin.
“So the fact is if we don’t reform our tax code … pretty soon we will not have U.S.-based multinational corporations. They’ll continue to be either purchased by a foreign company or they’ll keep moving overseas. So it is just math. We have got to get our tax system competitive. It’s not that complex to figure this out. But unfortunately, there’s a lot of political demagoguery that takes hold here.”
Johnson, the chairman of the Senate’s homeland security committee, also pointed toward the foiled terror plot at a Milwaukee Masonic temple last month as evidence that the country isn’t making enough progress in the war on terror.
Federal prosecutors said FBI agents arrested a man who said he planned a mass shooting.
“God bless the public safety officials, the FBI, the people that foiled that plot,” Johnson said. “That was going to be a slaughter that was averted. The threat of Islamic terror is real, is growing. We’re looking for needles in the haystack. The problem is there are more needles and the haystack is growing.
“So, no, we’ve got to take this threat very seriously. And I would argue the first step in a very long struggle — let’s face it, Islamic terrorists declared war on the civilized world decades ago. So this is going to be a long struggle, but we’ve got to accomplish President Obama’s own stated goal, degrade and defeat ISIS. Where I’ve disagreed with President Obama, he announced that goal 16 months ago and we’re not defeating them.”
