Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity Spending Millions to Fight Trump
Peter D'Abrosca
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Billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch are using their money and influence to sway public opinion against President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs on certain foreign goods.
According to BBC, Koch-backed Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and the LIBRE Initiative are all lobbying for the President to end steel and aluminum tariffs, as well as tariffs on other goods from China.
“There are better ways to negotiate trade deals than by punishing American consumers and businesses with higher costs,” said AFP President Tim Phillips.
But AFP and the Koch brothers have little-to-no interest in the well-being of the American consumer. They have supported globalist “free trade” deals like NAFTA, which have crippled the American manufacturing industry, costing hundreds of thousands of American jobs while widening the Koch’s profit margins with cheap foreign labor.
“Hopefully [with] the president, the rhetorical side of it is winning out over the policy side,” Mr. Phillips said on MSNBC in April. “We hope that is the case because NAFTA has been good for this country.”
For the same reason, the Koch-backed groups have publicly supported amnesty for so-called “Dreamers” under the guise of promoting border security.
“The importance of reaching an agreement on a permanent solution for Dreamers cannot be overstated,” said Freedom Partners Executive Vice President James Davis in April. “Pointing fingers, shifting blame and, ultimately, abandoning efforts to reach a consensus would be irresponsible and represent a grave injustice to those who know no other home than the United States. A deal is within reach – permanency for Dreamers and $25 billion to enhance border security – it is time to seize it.”
The Reagan amnesty deal in 1980’s provided the same promise of compromise. The result was increased illegal immigration, and more cheap labor for the Koch’s and their big business buddies. There is no reason to think that another amnesty deal will provide an actual solution to the problem of illegal border crossing from the South.
The American worker has been left behind by special interests who lobby on behalf of the Koch’s for decades. If groups like AFP and Freedom Partners actually cared about American jobs, they would have been fighting compulsory private unionization in states like Wisconsin, which have long been responsible for killing American jobs.
The feigned outrage over recently-imposed tariffs is nothing more than a strategic business move by the Koch’s, who would prefer to continue to grow their immense wealth at the expense of the average American.
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