Donald Trump takes on ‘Senator from Punjab’ with outsourcing jab

United Nation : The “Senator from Punjab” will meet the “Russian stooge and Putin’s pal” when the two US Presidential candidates clash in their first face-to-face debate in New York’s Hoffstra University on Monday.

Bitter invective about each other’s fealty to America is flowing out of both camps even as racial tensions are flaring up in different parts of the country amid continued police vs Black confrontations.

India, although marginal in the overall geo-political scheme of things to the Presidential elections, is getting dragged into the debate because of the outsourcing issue, with both candidates trying to portray the other as being unsympathetic to American workers and helping the flight of jobs from the US.

The Trump campaign, with ‘Make America Great Again’ as its central theme, stepped up its attack on Hillary Clinton this week by dredging up old stories and clips in which she joked about being a “Senator from Punjab”.

The website run by Trump’s new campaign chief Andrew Breitbart recalled Clinton’s remarks several years ago at a fundraiser hosted by Rajwant Singh, a prominent Indian-American from Maryland, where she said, “I can certainly run for the Senate seat in Punjab and win easily,” after being introduced by Singh as the “Senator not only from New York but also Punjab.” It was not the first time Clinton was using the line -in jest. She used a similar line at a Sikh awareness campaign event in the Capitol in 2005, getting a standing ovation.

What Breitbart didn’t mention was that even Republican lawmakers jostled to get in with the Sikhs, with then Indiana Senator Richard Lugar recalling how he has had a Sikh mentor for 37 years and had known the community since the time he was the mayor of Indianapolis. Ironically, it was the Barack Obama campaign that brought the “Senator from Punjab” jibe to the table in 2008 when the President fought Clinton for the Democratic nomination. A memo circulated to reporters by the Obama campaign was headlined “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)’s Personal and Political Ties to India,” a slur for which Obama later apologised.

But the Trump campaign has revived it, in the process also cherry-picking other Clinton quotes to show she is in favor of outsourcing -and therefore against American workers -even though she has also argued that outsourcing can also be good for the US economy and bring in jobs, as it has done through Tata’s operations in New York.

 

“Most notably, Clinton has extensive ties to corporations responsible for some of the most egregious anti-American worker labour practices: namely, the India-based Tata Consultancy Services and HCL…Interestingly, both companies have given money to the Clintons either via donations to the Clinton Foundation or paying Bill Clinton to deliver speeches,” the Breitbart story noted, saying the firms have “stolen” tens of thousands of US jobs. “HCL and Tata are responsible for the layoffs of workers from Disney, Southern California Edison, Northeast Utilities, Xerox, University of California, Siemens, and countless others,” it added.

The Clinton campaign isn’t lying back, shredding Trump big time for making many of his products abroad and questioning how that squares with his promise to big back jobs to America. “He also talks a big game about putting America First,” Clinton herself pointed out in one speech. “Please explain to me what part of America First leads him to make Trump ties in China, not Colorado. Trump suits in Mexico, not Michigan. Trump furniture in Turkey, not Ohio. Trump picture frames in India, not Wisconsin.”

Bureau Report