Ex-governor: US should look to Singapore on how to bring back jobs

Ex-governor: US should look to Singapore on how to bring back jobs

Look to Singapore - said former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm in response to a question about how President-elect Donald Trump's administration can bring back manufacturing jobs to the US.

She was responding to a question put to her by a Yale student at a recent live townhall show by CNN. Clips of the show have recently been making the rounds online in Singapore.

Mr Kyle Tierney, who supports Mr Trump, asked the former Clinton surrogate: "Trump has promised to bring back manufacturing jobs. How do you see the Trump administration distancing itself from continuing crony capitalism and making sure that the government isn't picking winners and losers in a tweet or press conference?"

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In her reply, Ms Granholm said it "is not just about taxes" and asked the audience to consider which country "does it best".

She shared that she posed the same question to a business roundtable of chief executives, asking which country makes it "irresistible for you to decide to go there and what are they doing".

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The answer, she said, was Singapore.

"And I said, well what is it about Singapore? What are they doing that we're not doing? And they said - it's not just about taxes," Ms Granholm said.

"It's the fact that they are assembling land for us to locate our factories there - it's that they're training people for specifically the jobs that are coming out of that factory. It's because they're providing us access to capital, they have the whole wrap-around strategy for how they become irresistible."

She said that the US has to be "irresistible to advanced manufacturers (around) the globe or we are going to lose out", adding that she would like to see "a comprehensive plan from the Trump administration".

Mr Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th US President on Friday.

This article by The Straits Times was published in The New Paper, a free newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

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