North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday that during his economic development trip last week to Europe, he pitched the state’s workforce and also heard concerns about the 2024 presidential election.
Cooper told reporters after a Council of State meeting in downtown Raleigh that he met with more than a dozen companies, including those interested in North Carolina.
NC recruiting business from Europe
While he didn’t announce any new recruitment, Cooper said companies told him they are interested in the state’s “workforce, and our efforts in clean energy and sustainability. I feel confident that there will be some potential companies that come to North Carolina as a result of this trip.”
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Cooper traveled to France, Germany and Switzerland and met with Schneider Electric, Syngenta, ABB, Novartis and Siemens AG, among others, according to his office.
Presidential election concerns
Cooper said the business and other leaders he met with “do care very much about this (presidential) election. There is concern about the election.”
“They asked me about what I thought would happen,” the Democratic governor said. “I told them that I believed that President Biden would be reelected. But with President Trump’s opposition to NATO, particularly at a time with the aggression of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin in Ukraine, there’s real concern among Europeans about whether Donald Trump will support their efforts to stop Putin’s aggression.”
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and the war has now continued for more than two years.
Cooper was joined on the trip by the N.C. Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
Economy and ‘middle of the road’ politics pitch
He said European leaders asked him why Americans are concerned about the economy.
“My point was, that I believe that the president had done an excellent job, that we do have a strong economy. But just like everywhere in the world, people are concerned about inflation, and it costing more to live. And that probably was affecting their view of the economy, because it does cost more,” Cooper said.
As for his state’s economy, Cooper said companies “like North Carolina’s predictability. They like North Carolina’s middle of the road approach to politics. They like the fact that we work together on economic development.”
Cooper is a Democrat and Republicans control the General Assembly, but the leaders have worked together in the past to recruit major business to the state. Cooper is term-limited and will leave office at the end of the year. Cooper said he wants to “build a foundation as to what North Carolina is about, regardless of who the political leaders are.”
Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein and Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson are running for governor. Cooper, a mentor and friend of Stein’s, told the European leaders that he thinks the state’s predictability and political approach will continue after the gubernatorial election.
“I believe that Josh Stein will be elected as governor, that he will continue a lot of the forward-thinking progress that we have made in the state. And I think a lot of these companies are very interested in coming here and creating jobs here,” Cooper said.
Cooper, who has seven months left in his term, said that when it comes to business recruitment, “I think I would have done more over my time as governor, but for COVID. And that just made it more difficult.”
What NC Gov. Cooper says about the economy and politics after European recruitment trip - Yahoo Canada Finance
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