Senator Richard Burr (R-Chutzpah)

Senator Richard Burr (R-NC)

Having voted for CAFTA, Burr touts jobs in area devastated by free trade

Republican Senator Richard Burr toured Northeast North Carolina on Wednesday, stopping in Edenton in Chowan County to tout jobs at the Colony Tire Plant and burnish his credentials with rural North Carolina voters.

What's the big deal with Burr taking his "broken promises" tour to Edenton, NC?

Five years ago, George C. Moore Co. closed the doors on a textile and dye plant that had been open since the 1960s, and 200 North Carolinians lost their jobs in the process. Where did the jobs go? Central America.

Read about the plant closure in a 2005 article published in the Herald Sun (opens PDF).

Richard Burr made such a move possible, having votedtwice to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), despite promising not to support the free trade giveaway to Big Business during his 2004 election campaign. CAFTA eliminated tariffs on exports from Central America to the United States, which meant George C. Moore Co. could produce the same goods there and sell them here without having to pay higher wages to employ Americans.

Richard Burr has been a strong advocate for bad trade deals, deals which have cost over 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs - over 372,300 in North Carolina alone - since NAFTA.