* In November 1993 Brown and fellow Congressional Representative Marcy Kaptur attended an anti-NAFTA event in Cleveland, Ohio.
* In 2002 Brown and 44 other members of Congress—42 Democrats and two Republicans—signed a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell urging an end to U.S. military aid for Colombia. According to Brown and his fellow signatories, the Bogota-based government was guilty of massive human-rights violations in its war against the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC)—the drug-running, guerrilla-terrorist wing of the Colombian Communist Party. Published worldwide and used as pro-FARC propaganda, this letter made no mention of the thousands of murders and atrocities FARC had committed, nor of the support FARC was receiving from Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
* When Brown went to the floor of the U.S. Senate in March 2008 to berate Republicans for allegedly trying to undermine labor unions, he said: “I look back at history, and some of the worst governments we’ve ever had, you know one of the first things they ever did? They went after the trade unions. Hitler didn’t want unions. Stalin didn’t want unions. [Former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak didn’t want independent unions. These autocrats in history don’t want independent unions…. I’m not comparing what’s happening to the workers in Madison or in Columbus to Hitler and Stalin. But I am saying that history teaches us that unions are a very positive force in society that creates a middle class, and it protects our freedom.”
* In June 2008, Brown co-sponsored the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act, which, according to Ohio AFL-CIO official Tim Burga, promoted “fair and level global trade” while striking a blow against “corporate profiteers.” But a Heritage Foundation analysis stated that the Act, which ultimately did not pass into law, would have “effectively [brought] to a halt the free flow of goods and services into and out of the United States–hurting U.S. consumers and exporters alike.” “The real intent of the legislation,” said Heritage, “is clear: to erect costly, protectionist walls around America’s economy. In the process, it is likely to sound the death knell for the international trade system as a whole.”
* In February 2010, it was reported that a “clean technology” bill sponsored by Brown—the “Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act of 2009”—had been drafted with the help of the Apollo Alliance.
* On December 10, 2013, Brown joined leaders from the Blue Green Alliance, the Center for American Progress, and the Institute for America’s Future to release “The Green Industrial Revolution and the United States,” a new report promoting solar- and wind-based energy alternatives to fossil fuels.
* In April 2012, Brown joined fellow Democrat senators Richard Blumenthal, Ben Cardin, Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Bill Nelson, and Bernie Sanders in sponsoring a bill to “give federal regulators immediate authority to invoke emergency powers to rein in speculators who are responsible for rapidly rising gasoline prices.”
* At an October 18, 2012 event at a Jewish center in Columbus, Ohio, Brown portrayed himself as a staunch supporter of sanctions designed to prevent Iran’s pursuit of nuclear-weapons capability. But one of Brown’s top donors – the Council for a Livable World – has actively opposed Iran sanctions and suggests that Iran is nowhere close to developing a nuclear arsenal.
* In February 2013, Brown was part of a delegation of Democrat lawmakers who visited Communist Cuba in an effort to gauge that country’s economic condition and to lobby on behalf of Alan Gross, an American subcontractor who had been detained in Cuba since 2009 for illegally distributing communications equipment there. Other lawmakers in Brown’s delegation included Jeff Flake, Patrick Leahy, James McGovern, Debbie Stabenow, Chris Van Hollen, and Sheldon Whitehouse.