Ad by GOP Senate candidate Mike Braun sends unintended mixed message on outsourcing jobs

Screenshot of GOP Senate candidate Mike Braun's campaign ad.

WASHINGTON — GOP Senate candidate Mike Braun boasts in a new campaign ad that his business is “proud to be made in America.”

But the ad shows logos on company trucks for two of Braun’s suppliers that use overseas manufacturing facilities.

It’s the latest in a round of ads aired by Braun, Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly — or the super PACs on both sides — over the politically sensitive issue of outsourcing jobs.

Braun owns Meyer Distributing, a Jasper-based national auto parts distribution company that the Associated Press previously reported imports goods from the same overseas countries he has criticized for taking American jobs. He also owns the trucking company Meyer Logistics. 

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Braun has emphasized that most of his suppliers — like his own company — are based in the United States.

 “Mike Braun’s business is made in America, employs American workers, and only has locations only in America,” Braun campaign spokesman Josh Kelly said when asked about the suppliers shown in the ad who use overseas facilities for some products. “Despite terrible policies out of Washington that have sent jobs overseas, 95 percent of Mike's suppliers are American companies.”

Ad battle over business

A Democratic super PAC is running ads accusing Braun of getting a “big chunk” of his earnings from outsourcing.

And Donnelly recently launched a similar ad charging Braun with “paying himself millions by importing cheap foreign auto parts from countries like Mexico and China.”

Releasing his response ad Wednesday, Braun said Democrats are “attacking my character” and “it’s time we tell our story.”

In the ad’s opening shot, Braun walks through a bank of trucks as he says his company “treats folks like family.”

There are logos on the sides of the trucks for Warn Industries and Fox Shox.

Warn Industries, an auto parts maker, imports some products from China and other countries.

Fox Shox has manufacturing facilities in Taiwan.

U.S. relies on foreign auto parts

Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the nonpartisan PolitiFact that about 40 percent of auto parts needed to build a car come from outside the United States. Cutting off that supply would cost American jobs because the cost of production would skyrocket — if the car could be made at all, Alden is quoted as saying.

Checking Braun’s claim that 95 percent of Meyer’s suppliers are American companies, PolitiFact found that at least forty of the 733 suppliers are headquartered outside the United States, including one in Mexico.

“We’re proud to be made in America,” Braun says in his ad. “And unlike Senator Donnelly’s family, we never send jobs to Mexico.”

Likewise, a Republican super PAC launched ads last week accusing Donnelly of profiting from his family’s outsourcing of jobs to Mexico.

Donnelly's family business' foreign connections

The Associated Press reported last year that Donnelly made at least $15,001 in dividends in 2016 on stock in his family’s arts and crafts company, which used Mexican workers to produce dye for ink pads.

After the report, Donnelly sold his stock and donated the $17,410 in proceeds to charity.

The company is run by Donnelly’s brother. Donnelly had served as a corporate officer and general counsel before he was elected to Congress in 2006.

Donnelly is one of the most vulnerable senators facing re-election this fall.

The loss of jobs to other countries is a major talking point for President Trump, who carried Indiana by 19 percentage points last year after promising to keep companies like Carrier Corp. from moving jobs to Mexico.

While Republicans have been calling Donnelly “Mexico Joe,” a Democratic super PAC released an ad this month defending “Indiana Joe.”

The ad features workers crediting Donnelly with supporting legislation to punish companies that ship jobs overseas.

“Because Joe Donnelly,” says a man in blue coveralls, “he’s Indiana Joe.”

Contact Maureen Groppe at mgroppe@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @mgroppe.