For Commerce Pick Wilbur Ross, ‘Inherently Bad’ Deals Paid Off
And yet, for more than a decade, those same trade deals helped Mr. Ross amass a fortune across the globe — in countries like Mexico and China, among others. In fact, Mr. Ross has sometimes invested overseas in ways that Mr. Trump condemns.
.. As the head of an auto parts company, Mr. Ross shipped jobs to Mexico, taking advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he now says is unfair and must be renegotiated. That company, along with a textile firm he founded, publicly stated that Mexico was central to their growth.
.. “As a private businessman, Mr. Ross made pragmatic decisions based on the rules of the road at the time , and it is precisely his knowledge of how trade deals work that will allow him to be successful in renegotiating bad deals like Nafta,
.. in 2006, Mr. Ross announced plans to open an $80 million state-of-the-art cotton plant in Vietnam that would employ 1,500 workers. It was one of many business decisions Mr. Ross made over the years that seemed to depart from Mr. Trump’s stance against free-trade deals and the migration of jobs overseas.
.. But he began transferring work to Mexico in the early days of his business. When Mr. Ross acquired an auto parts factory in Carlisle, Pa., a decade ago, he took a hard line with the union, demanding cuts in wages and benefits worth between a quarter and 30 percent of workers’ earnings
.. “Wilbur Ross — there’s no way he cares about the worker,” said Stacey Foltz, who worked at the plant for 10 years. “He made billions of dollars taking jobs out of the country.”