Our thin-skinned soon-to-be president made an announcement via Instagram this morning:
A few things jump out with this graphically challenged social media announcement. The biggest is the hypocritical nature of this announcement coming from a person whose own businesses rarely buy or hire American. For instance:
His new hotel, just down the road from the White House, is filled top to bottom with goods made largely in China.
His Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida is largely staffed by foreign workers:
Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club and Jupiter Golf Club have filed documents to bring in as many as 78 foreign workers for the next fiscal year. In total, records filed at the U.S. Department of Labor and reviewed by CNN reveal that in the last 15 years, Donald Trump's various businesses have been granted approval to import at least 1,256 foreign guest workers.
The guest workers were brought in on a variety of different U.S. visa programs that allow companies to import workers temporarily from overseas.
Trump seems to like his overseas workers to be young and attractive, and with strong specific accents from Romania and South Africa -- countries that convey a well-heeled, exotic appeal, according to numerous former workers interviewed on background.
And Donald Trump especially likes the workers when they are women, who he lavishly tips, according to several of the former workers interviewed.
His tacky Trump-branded clothing line is made nearly everywhere but the USA:
Trump shirts were made in China, Bangladesh, Honduras and Vietnam. PolitiFact Virginia found some Trump sport coats made in India. The Clinton campaign pointed to import data from 2007 that showed a Trump men’s shirt shipment marked as made in South Korea.
Some of the Trump suits on Amazon.com show they were imported, Made in USA or both. BuzzFeed ordered a suit that was listed as both “imported” and “Made in USA” — and ended up with a label showing the suits were made in Indonesia.
Users commented on Amazon.com that the suit that BuzzFeed purchased previously was listed as being imported from Mexico or China. This photo shows a Trump suit that carries a “Made in Mexico” label.
Even the companies owned by his children feature products made overseas and foreign workers. Just last week Eric Trump was seeking foreign workers for his Virginia winery:
As Donald Trump prepares to assume the presidency after campaigning to restore American jobs, a Virginia winery owned by his son, Eric Trump, has applied for permission to import more foreign workers to prune grapevines.
On Wednesday, the Department of Labor posted a petition from Trump Winery, also known as Trump Vineyard Estates, asking to bring in six vineyard workers under the federal H-2 visa program, which permits US employers to bring in foreign laborers on temporary work visas. Since 2003, more than 100,000 foreigners have been brought in under the program each year.
And favorite child Ivanka Trump’s $100 million clothing line is entirely manufactured in Asia.
Of course Donald Trump isn’t the only person to make a push to “Buy American.” In fact, President Obama tried time and time again to get a Republican-led Congress to pass a jobs bill that included "Buy American" provisions in 2010. But there was no way Republicans were going to pass that and help President Obama create a booming economy. Not on their watch!