Perdue Exposed As “Outsourcing Expert” And Hypocritical Fraud Who Spent His Corporate Career Shipping American Jobs To China

A revealing new in-depth New York Times profile of Senator David Perdue exposes the self-serving politician’s extensive ties to China and his lengthy business career working to ship American jobs overseas as an “outsourcing expert.” From Perdue’s recent attempts to erase his record of outsourcing work to Asia and close ties with the Chinese government, to his gross misrepresentations of his business record, his fabricated persona on the campaign trail as a political outsider, and his aversion to facing his constituents, it’s clear that Georgians can’t trust this ultra-wealthy corporate insider to put their interests first in Washington.

Perdue has already come under fire for trying to erase his China ties and editing out his China connections from a campaign video. In a stunning display of hypocrisy, Perdue has spent the runoff using China as a “political football” in his re-election bid, “fearmongering” and lobbing false attacks at his opponent in a desperate attempt to distract from his own extensive record of outsourcing to China and Asia.

Here are five key takeaways from the NYT profile: “Before Embracing America-First Agenda, David Perdue Was an Outsourcing Expert”

1. Perdue got rich outsourcing U.S. jobs to China and other Asian countries — and screwing over American workers, including hundreds of Georgians.

• The man who has lately voiced support for some of President Trump’s signature tariffs built his career as an unapologetic, free-trading practitioner of the outsourcing arts. As a top executive at companies including Reebok, Sara Lee and Dollar General, he was often deeply involved in the shift of manufacturing, and jobs, to low-wage factories in China and other Asian countries.

• Mr. Perdue left in 1984 and worked at a few other places before ending up at Sara Lee, which was best known for its baked goods but was also an apparel manufacturer. He was hired in 1992 to open a headquarters in Hong Kong, where he lived for two years, establishing operations throughout Asia “from the ground up,” he would later say. The ripple effects reached home. In 1994, the company eliminated thousands of jobs, including 230 at its Spring City Knitting plant in Cartersville, Ga. Most of the workers were women who earned $4.25 an hour sewing garments.

• As chief executive [of Dollar General], Mr. Perdue oversaw the opening of a Hong Kong office in 2004, increasing the “global sourcing” that “helps to provide the low everyday price our customers count on,” according to a company announcement. Among the global sources were manufacturers in China, records show.

• A month before the election, a transcript surfaced of a nine-year-old deposition in which Mr. Perdue said he had spent “most of my career” outsourcing. Questioned by reporters, Mr. Perdue replied that he was “proud” of that record. “This is a part of American business, part of any business,” he said, adding, “People do that all day.”

2. Perdue is deliberately hiding his extensive corporate ties to China… and his own dealings with the Chinese government and the Communist Party.

• Mr. Perdue’s campaign’s biographical video, meanwhile, has been refreshed for 2020. Edited out is a section that showed the senator posing with his wife on China’s Great Wall.

• Mr. Perdue has said little about his own China ties. In 1991, the year before he headed to Hong Kong to build Sara Lee’s Asian outsourcing operation “from the ground up,” the company proudly announced a new foothold in Asia — a deal in Fuzhou, China. The joint venture, Fujian Sara Lee Consumer Products, manufactured toothpaste, shampoo and other personal care products. It was partially owned by the Chinese government, according to a report in The Chicago Tribune announcing the venture… No American firm could have established such an operation in China at that time without dealing extensively with the government or the Communist Party, industry experts said.

• This week, The Times asked Mr. Perdue’s campaign if he had any other business involving the Chinese government. The campaign declined to answer.

3. Perdue consistently misrepresents his corporate career. At Reebok, he was actually “pushed out” of the company because “he couldn’t make decisions.” At Pillowtex, his “inaction led to the company’s demise” and mass layoffs. Dollar General was repeatedly sued for wage theft and pay discrimination. Perdue’s trucking business venture closed abruptly and left more than 500 workers unemployed.

• The 2014 video produced by Mr. Perdue’s Senate campaign — in which he discusses licensing agreements — portrays him as the architect of Reebok’s turnaround. Even in the wake of improvements in the company’s business, though, Reebok’s chairman, Paul Fireman, passed over Mr. Perdue for promotion to the company’s No. 2 job… Mr. Margolis says that he and Mr. Fireman actually pushed out Mr. Perdue, who has characterized his departure from Reebok as voluntary. “I look back on David. He couldn’t make decisions. He was so indecisive, he couldn’t move the product forward,” Mr. Margolis said.

• Leaving behind what he would later describe as $5 million worth of “in-the-money unvested” Reebok stock options, Mr. Perdue agreed in spring 2002 to take the job as chief executive of Pillowtex. The company was just emerging from bankruptcy, and thousands of workers at its home base in Kannapolis, N.C., viewed Mr. Perdue as a potential savior, according to Scott Shimizu, a former executive vice president. Looking back, though, Mr. Shimizu said he believed Mr. Perdue’s inaction led to the company’s demise. The company needed to sell off assets quickly and outsource production to survive — with the possibility of retaining part of its United States work force — but Mr. Shimizu says Mr. Perdue took few steps to do either. “He didn’t really help us,” said Mr. Shimizu. “We were waiting for him to bring the Ten Commandments to us. They never came.”

• Low wages were another way [Dollar General] controlled costs. Store managers sued the company, complaining that they were not paid overtime, even though they took on nonmanagerial duties, unloading trucks and stocking shelves after hours. Some of their claims, as well as legal complaints from female workers who said they were inequitably compensated, resulted in payouts.

• About a year later, records show, the cousins formed a company called Perdue Partners, which in December 2012 acquired Benton Express, an Atlanta-based trucking company that had operated as a regional family business for nearly 80 years. They renamed it Benton Global and pledged to reinvigorate the business by drawing on overseas connections, and especially David Perdue’s ties to Asia, according to press reports and interviews with former employees… But the promised new international business never materialized, and the company, already suffering from flagging revenues, struggled to pay its bills. It closed abruptly in 2015, leaving more than 500 truck drivers, clerks and terminal workers unemployed.

4. Perdue pretends to be a political outsider, but his “entree to politics” was his cousin being a former governor.

• As when he first ran for office six years ago, Mr. Perdue, who is 71, regularly invokes those decades in business to style himself the ultimate Washington “outsider,” though it was his cousin the former governor who gave him his entree to politics and helped nurture his ascent.

• In 2010, as Sonny Perdue was finishing his second term as governor, he named his cousin David to the board of the Georgia Ports Authority… As a member of the ports authority board, Mr. Perdue voted repeatedly on infrastructure improvements that might have benefited his trucking business, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

• When Mr. Perdue decided to run, he recruited top aides from his cousin’s campaign staff. “David’s team was Sonny’s team,” said Jack Kingston, a longtime Republican congressman who also sought the vacant seat. Sonny Perdue, he said, was “very instrumental” in his cousin’s campaign.

5. Perdue is aloof from everyday Georgians and has spent his entire term avoiding town halls, tough questions — and now, debates.

• The man who dons a faded denim jacket to reinforce his connection to everyday Georgians has a record of aloofness, with an aversion to holding town hall meetings and a thin skin for tough questions. Now he has chosen a further withdrawal, declining to participate in additional debates after one in which his Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, called him a “crook” for his prolific stock-trading while in the Senate.

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