Clinton seeks coal, steel union support

DEMOCRAT Hillary Clinton, turning her attention to the November US election and an increasingly likely match-up against Republican Donald Trump, sought yesterday to shore up union support by visiting coal and steel workers in the economically struggling Appalachian region.

The tour comes as Trump accused China of “raping” the US as he renewed criticism of China’s trade policies.

Speaking in Indiana, Trump said China was responsible for “the greatest theft in the history of the world”.

He has repeatedly accused China of manipulating its currency to make global exports more competitive.

This had caused adverse effects on US businesses and workers, Trump said.

Clinton, in a move to reclaim her early pledge to focus on helping the struggling region resuscitate its economies, will meet the head of a steel workers’ union, retired mine workers and others in Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio affected by declining coal and steel prices.

Her pledge of more than $30-billion (R430-billion) to help coal regions was overshadowed in March when Clinton, at an Ohio town hall, said the country would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business”.

Clinton’s statement was seized upon by coal industry groups and Republican lawmakers as evidence she planned to continue carrying out President Barack Obama’s regulatory “war” on coal.

Clinton immediately sent an apology letter to Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia pledging to “focus my team and administration on bringing jobs to Appalachia” and help its residents adjust to a wave of coal company bankruptcies and changes in the US energy market.

Her decision to embark on an Appalachian tour is in part timed ahead of Democratic nominating contests in West Virginia on May 10 and in Kentucky on May 17 as she seeks to secure the nomination before the party’s July convention.

West Virginia last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for his second four-year term.

He is the only Democrat to have won Kentucky since 1980.