Last week, Jay Inslee announced he would leave at the end of the month to lead a 9-day trade mission to Korea and Japan. The directors of the state Agriculture and Commerce departments, and 60 leaders from the business, education, economic development and local government communities, will accompany the “green” governor, to try and keep him from embarrassing our state.
The delegation plans to hold talks on trade and investment in the agriculture, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and technology sectors. The trip is quite ambitious, which is the primary reason why Inslee should not be leading it. For this Friday Funny, Shift presents five additional reasons why he should not be leading a trade mission of any kind.
- Inslee doesn’t have a great grasp of the English language, let alone any foreign language, which should automatically disqualify him.
You can check out the details here.
- State lawmakers kicked Inslee out of the budget talks during the 2015 legislative session. That fact doesn’t inspire much confidence in Inslee’s ability to lead a trade delegation.
You can check out the details here.
- Inslee refused to stand up for international trade in Washington State during a labor dispute at the Port of Vancouver. Instead, Inslee took the side of the union in order to please his million-dollar campaign donors. The incident certainly doesn’t bode well for a successful trade mission.
You can check out the details here.
- When Inslee suggested that the state “ride and beat” the Highway 99 project contractors like a “cheap mule” last week, he failed to take into account that the company that built Bertha—the tunnel boring machine—is Japanese. He also failed to take into account that the problems are, in fact, the fault of the state not the contractors, who include Hitachi Zosen Sakai Works. Yet, our green governor is headed to Japan this month… to talk about the advanced manufacturing and technology sector.
You can check out the details here.
- Inslee may or may not think it’s appropriate to present Korean and Japanese delegates with his hand-drawn pictures and/or some handmade craft that his staff had him work on as a distraction for the plane ride over—a scenario that would be embarrassing for everyone involved.
You can check out the details here.
Fortunately for your proposal, the Japanese and Koreans (to the very, very best of your knowledge) do not place great value upon stature and protocol, so therefore a delegation from Washington state which intentionally does not include our state’s highest-ranking official will not offend them in the slightest. Therefore, we (by which I mean “you”) can be certain a delegation which does not include Gov. Inslee will be more effective than one which does.