Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) unveiled her "Green Manufacturing Plan" on Tuesday, touting an "economic patriotism" that promises to protect American workers from foreign encroachment on manufacturing.
Warren's plan, which the 2020 presidential hopeful outlined in a Medium post, proposes protecting American home interests on issues such as trade, currency manipulation, and keeping jobs in America rather than overseas. Warren argues that globalization and trends toward automation in manufacturing are "excuses" corporate America makes to justify acting in its own interests.
"These companies wave the flag—but they have no loyalty or allegiance to America," Warren writes, calling out corporations such as Levi's, Dixon Ticonderoga, and General Electric for moving factories overseas. "These 'American' companies show only one real loyalty: to the short-term interests of their shareholders, a third of whom are foreign investors."
Warren blamed politicians in Washington, D.C., for allowing this system to persist.
"The truth is that Washington policies—not unstoppable market forces—are a key driver of the problems American workers face," she wrote. "From our trade agreements to our tax code, we have encouraged companies to invest abroad, ship jobs overseas, and keep wages low."
Warren announced her plan prior to visiting Great Lakes states Michigan and Indiana, which have both been adversely affected by industrial decline in the United States. The senator plans to unroll more of her plan in the coming weeks, but has detailed several objectives, including "more actively managing" currency and opposing trade deals similar to President Barack Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership. Warren has historically opposed trade deals that favor globalist policies.
"Globalization isn't some mysterious force whose effects are inevitable and beyond our control," she wrote in her Medium post. "No—America chose to pursue a trade policy that prioritized the interests of capital over the interests of American workers."
Warren's attacks on globalism echo President Donald Trump's opposition to corporations setting up factories outside the United States. In 2016, Trump criticized Nabisco for moving a plant to Mexico and told his supporters to boycott one of the company's flagship products, Oreos. Trump was also responsible for removing the United States from the TPP, which Warren had argued was "letting giant corporations rig the rules," when Obama instituted it, according to Politico.