U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump argues that China stole American manufacturing jobs, and he’s pledged to steal them back. Such pledges may be expected to resonate most strongly in old industrial states like Pennsylvania, where thousands of steel and other jobs have disappeared. But TaiwanPlus traveled to the crucial swing state and found Trump’s message not always welcome.
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00:00It hasn't been easy for retired steam-fitter John Kostik to campaign for Democratic candidate
00:08Kamala Harris.
00:10In his home state of Pennsylvania, he's been playing cat and mouse with Republicans who
00:15replace his Harris signs with her rival Donald Trump's.
00:19This old industrial state is a key battleground in the presidential elections.
00:25Kostik says Harris would be better for workers, despite Trump's promise of bringing jobs back
00:30to the US, a vow the billionaire also made when he ran for president and won in 2016.
00:38Donald Trump, his whole candidacy is built on lies.
00:43He said he was going to help the coal miners.
00:45Did he help the coal miners?
00:47No.
00:48Coal miners still lost their jobs.
00:51This time around, Trump says he's going to steal jobs back from other countries, including
00:56China, and restore Pennsylvania, one of the nation's main manufacturing hubs, to its former glory.
01:05Throughout the 20th century, the steel industry drove parts of Pennsylvania.
01:10Here in the city of Bethlehem was once the world's second largest steel manufacturer,
01:15employing 35,000 people.
01:18But it stopped making steel 30 years ago.
01:21Since then, the city has diversified into other industries like medical devices, pharmaceuticals
01:28and finance.
01:30Regardless of Trump's pledge, a former mayor of Bethlehem, Don Cunningham, says it makes
01:35no sense to recreate a steel industry of more than 40 years ago.
01:41It's a romantic notion that people love to hear, because if you miss something and someone
01:50tells you you can go back to it, it's like if somebody said you can go back to childhood
01:54and be in your safe space with your mom and dad.
01:58It's a nice notion, but it's not an economic strategy.
02:02So at least in my time, the major job of the carpenters was scaffolding and roofing.
02:06To preserve the industry's legacy, former steel worker Don Young leads weekly tours
02:11around the long-closed Bethlehem steel site.
02:15He worked here for 37 years and is a Republican, but he's not as passionate about the party's
02:21candidate as his wife, Barbara.
02:23She says she believes Trump will bring jobs back, something necessary for America's security.
02:31My grandfathers and my uncles, my own father worked in the coal mines, very hard job.
02:39And we need to be independent, we need to be independent of China and we need to frack
02:46and dig for our own coal.
02:53Harris, Trump's opponent, has also been campaigning in Pennsylvania, vowing to stop China undermining
03:00American workers, trying to appeal to voters in this crucial swing state, arguably the
03:05most important one for either candidate to win.
03:09Here their promises for the future are set against the ghosts of long-gone industries,
03:15confronting questions over whether communities can move on from the past and from the present
03:21division that persists in American politics.
03:25Justin Wu, Ed Moon and Louise Watt for Taiwan Plus.
03:30For more UN videos visit www.un.org