Timken's Family Company Cut Deals with Russia as Putin Annexed Crimea

Ohio Republican Senate candidate Jane Timken is vowing to “stand up strong” to Russian President Vladimir Putin, even as her family’s company cut deals with Russia.

As President Joe Biden attempts to embroil the United States in a border conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Senate candidate J.D. Vance released a statement slamming “America Last” interventionist politicians attempting to further involve the U.S. in disputes abroad.

“The Russia-Ukraine border dispute has nothing to do with our national security,” Vance said. “No American interest is served by our intervention, and that the obsession with Ukraine from our idiot leaders serves no function except to distract us from our actual problems.”

Vance said America’s lawmakers ought to be focused on its own borders, specifically the U.S.-Mexico border that has been overrun with illegal immigration and drug trafficking for decades at the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

In response, Timken suggested that the U.S. must be involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict because Ukrainians reside in Ohio and other states.

Additionally, in a radio interview this week, Timken repeatedly said she would urge Biden to “stand up strong” to Russia and that she supports “sanctions on aggressors like Vladimir Putin.”

An Associated Press-NORC Poll on Wednesday found that just 26 percent of Americans want the U.S. to play a “major role” in the Russia-Ukraine conflict — including only 22 percent of Republican voters. About 76 percent of Republicans said the U.S. should have only a “minor role” or “no role” at all in the matter.

The remarks come even as Timken’s family company, The Timken Company, cut deals with Russia in 2014 to help expand its rail industry just as Putin reclaimed Crimea from Ukraine as part of Russia.

Timken’s husband, Tim Timken, was serving as executive chairman at The Timken Company at the time the deals with Russia were made. Ohio’s Ukrainian community blasted the business dealings, Cleveland.com reported:

Ohio has about 49,000 people of Ukrainian ancestry, and leaders say they are outraged that Timken Co., of Canton, would agree to help Russia’s railroad industry expand while Russia has snubbed world opinion and taken over a Ukrainian state, Crimea. Russian rail cars have already been used to transport tanks and trucks to the Ukraine border, and no United States company should help the Russian rail industry or the country’s thuggish leaders right now, they said. [Emphasis added]

…

Timken is a global company that says it already has employees in 28 countries on six continents and has been working in Russia for decades. But last week it announced a joint venture with the European Bearing Corp. to supply bearings to industrial markets in Russia and the former republics that make up the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS. [Emphasis added]

Then, on Monday, Timken announced the rail car project with United Wagon, describing an opportunity to put Timken roller bearings in a potential one million new freight cars. It said it began the deals before Russia took over Crimea and massed troops along the border. [Emphasis added]

Tim Timken, after leaving The Timken Company to join its offshoot TimkenSteel as CEO, now serves as CEO of the lobbying firm McKinley Strategies. In her bid for Senate, Timken has raked in nearly $16,000 from The Timken Company, TimkenSteel, and her husband’s McKinley Strategies.

As Breitbart News reported, The Timken Company outsourced American manufacturing jobs from Ohio to China as Tim Timken served as chairman. In one instance in 2008, The Timken Company entered into a joint venture with the Chinese company Xiangtan Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd. to create a wind energy plant.

The following year, The Timken Company cut nearly 3,000 American jobs. In 2010, executives announced that it was continuing to expand its new plant in China.

The Ohio Senate Republican primary election will take place on May 3.