Going Inside Trump’s Chinese Tie Factories

Encased in Ziploc at the bottom of my shoulder bag was a Donald J. Trump-€”brand necktie with silver checks that I purchased just days earlier for $60 in the lobby of Trump’s flagship skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Made in China, the tie had now traveled twice across the Pacific Ocean and, as Trump had just weeks earlier secured the Republican presidential nomination, it now carried more political weight than ever. For more than a year, Trump’s opponents had continually seized upon his foreign-made goods to call out the hypocrisy of a campaign centering on a pledge to repatriate jobs that, in Trump’s telling, global trade had wrongfully taken from American workers. The ties in particular had become a fixation of Hillary Clinton. Just days after slamming Trump for making neckties in China on the stage of the Democratic National Convention, Clinton hoisted a glittering red Trump tie over her head while addressing a group of workers at a factory in Colorado. “I’d really like him to explain why he paid Chinese workers to make Trump ties,” Clinton said, gripping the folded garment. Read more at Racked.