MARK KARLIN, BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It's not possible to be an offshore manufacturing profiteer and to simultaneously champion keeping jobs in the US, without being a hypocrite. No one can prove that point better than Donald Trump.

As a September 1 Slate article noted, "Donald Trump loves to insult China and Mexico."

On August 25, CNN quoted Trump saying of China, "They want our people to starve - they're taking our business away. They've taken our jobs away." He also pledged to start a trade war with Beijing.

However, back in 2012, David Letterman presciently decimated Trump's swaggering bluster about restoring US jobs that have been moved to China and other non-US locations.

After talking about the 2012 US presidential race on his show (as seen in a 2012 YouTube clip below), Letterman brought up Trump's "exclusive" signature line of clothing. Trump was ready for the chance to market his eponymous men's fashion apparel. "It's ties, shirts and cufflinks, sold at Macy's, and they're doing great," Trump shilled on Letterman's program. "[It's the] number-one tie sold anywhere in the world."



Trump had earlier claimed that he didn't know where his clothing line was manufactured. But Trump wasn't ready for Letterman's follow-up: The host displayed a couple of Trump shirts - noting that they were made in Bangladesh. Letterman then nailed Trump by pulling out a few ties from Trump's commercial line and asking him where they were made. Trump didn't respond, and Letterman said, as if offering evidence in a court case, "The ties are made in China." All "The Donald" could do was shrug and roll his eyes. There's an entire billion dollar industry of corporate mass media asking Trump frivolous questions in 2015, and often failing to pin down his demagogic bluster. However, Letterman exposed him as a profiteering hypocrite in 2012 with two shirts and a few ties.

Beyond Trump's vile racist tirades against Mexican migrants, he also berates companies that move jobs to Mexico:

"You know what, because they make a fortune with us," Trump claimed on Aug. 19 on CNN. "Our companies are moving into Mexico more than almost any other place right now. We are losing our industry. We're losing our business to Mexico."

On July 2, The Huffington Post reposted a Trump tweet: "I love the Mexican people, but Mexico is not our friend. They're killing us at the border and they're killing us on jobs and trade. FIGHT!" In the same article, tweets with photos were posted of Trump's line of suits with labels showing that they were made in Mexico.

Macy's has since dropped the Trump signature line of men's apparel because of his defamatory remarks about Mexican migrants. Trump, for his part, now claims - as reprinted in The Huffington Post report - that "I have never been happy that the ties and shirts are made in China." He admits that it has been, however, more profitable to manufacture a large part of his clothing line there - thus falling full force into the chasm reserved for plutocratic political hypocrites.

Not to be reposted without the permission of Truthout.