<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/20/democrats-just-made-move-big-trump-weakness/?utm_term=.b57292b6b706" class="">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/20/democrats-just-made-move-big-trump-weakness/?utm_term=.b57292b6b706</a><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><font size="5" class=""><b class="">The 2020 Democrats just made a move on a big Trump weakness<br class=""></b></font><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="author-sig-line-wrapper analysis-story"> <div class="author-headshot"> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/greg-sargent/" class=""> <img class="_1-to-1 courtesy-of-the-lazy-loader hi-res-lazy" src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/DECdlntcdaFEN_Bf56K3NtyasQI=/90x90/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/washpost/0ca1b698-1475-49d4-a91b-bfa9de93de1f.png" data-hi-res-src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/DECdlntcdaFEN_Bf56K3NtyasQI=/90x90/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/washpost/0ca1b698-1475-49d4-a91b-bfa9de93de1f.png" data-low-res-src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/CQofiogFOPBhCagSBgcDgGYiedQ=/29x29/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/washpost/0ca1b698-1475-49d4-a91b-bfa9de93de1f.png" data-raw-src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/washpost/0ca1b698-1475-49d4-a91b-bfa9de93de1f.png" data-threshold="29"> </a> </div> <div class="author-sig-line"> <div class="author-byline-wrapper"> <div class="author-byline"> By <a class="author-name" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/greg-sargent/"> Greg Sargent</a> </div> </div> <div class="author-wrapper" data-authorname="Greg Sargent"> <div class="author-info"> <div class="author-role">Opinion writer</div> </div> <span class="author-timestamp" itemprop="datePublished" content="2019-06-20T05:01-500">June 20 at 5:01 PM</span> </div> </div></div></div><div class=""><p data-elm-loc="1" class="">Whether President Trump knows this or not, he’s very
vulnerable to Democratic attacks in his signature area of trade, which
is why he badly needs a big victory on the issue. Such a victory might
include reaching a good deal with China, or getting Congress to pass his
revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement.</p><p data-elm-loc="2" class="">But
the top-tier 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have just made a
move in unison that could make that latter possibility less likely.</p><p data-elm-loc="3" class="">All
of the leading Democratic contenders have signed on to a statement
opposing Congressional passage of Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA unless
major changes are made, I’ve learned. This could make it harder for
Democrats -- many of whom already have criticisms of the deal -- to pass
it, which could in turn end up denying Trump a serious victory going
into the 2020 election.</p><p data-elm-loc="4" class="">The
top-tier Democrats -- including Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie
Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Beto O’Rourke -- have all
joined a statement that was authored by the <a href="https://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/" target="_blank" class="">Citizens Trade Campaign</a>, a coalition of groups pushing changes to the deal, which is known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.</p><p data-elm-loc="5" class="">That
statement, which was sent my way, says Congress should not enact the
deal “unless and until stronger labor and environmental terms with swift
and certain enforcement are added and language on pharmaceutical
monopolies that locks in high medicine prices is removed.” </p><p data-elm-loc="6" class="">All five of those campaigns confirmed to me that they had signed on.</p><p data-elm-loc="7" class="">The USMCA alters the old NAFTA <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/3/17930092/usmca-mexico-nafta-trump-trade-deal-explained" target="_blank" class="">in numerous ways</a>.
It requires a higher percentage of autos to be made in the three
countries to qualify for no tariffs, and it also requires 40 percent to
45 percent of auto parts on such cars to be manufactured by workers
making at least $16 per hour. It also expands copyright protections for
drugs against generic competition.</p><p data-elm-loc="8" class="">As
it is, many House Democrats want improvements to this deal, in the form
of better labor and wage standards and tougher mechanisms to enforce
those standards, and they view the copyright expansion as a giveaway to
Big Pharma. The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/politics/pelosi-trump-nafta-deal.html" target="_blank" class="">recently reported</a>
that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, under pressure from labor, is
slow-walking the agreement by talking about the need for months-long
studies of its impact, putting its passage in some doubt.</p><p data-elm-loc="9" class="">Trump is desperate to get this deal through Congress. Vice President Pence <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/politics/pelosi-trump-nafta-deal.html" target="_blank" class="">has reportedly been trying</a>
to generate support for it in battleground House districts in the
industrial Midwest, in hopes of pressuring House Democrats to support
it.</p><p data-elm-loc="10" class="">But now that the top-tier Democratic
candidates have signed on to a statement opposing Congressional approval
without big changes, that could make it harder to get it approved. If
it doesn’t, Trump might have to revisit the deal with Canada and Mexico,
which he surely doesn’t want to do. The changes the Democratic
candidates want are broadly in keeping with what labor and many House
Democrats want.</p><p data-elm-loc="11" class="">This
is of particular interest when it comes to Biden and O’Rourke. Warren
and Sanders have long opposed NAFTA. But Biden and O’Rourke have
supported NAFTA, and progressives have trained particular fire on Biden
over trade, seeing him as representative of the pro-free-trade,
corporate wing of the Democratic Party.</p><p data-elm-loc="12" class="">But Biden’s call for changes to the current NAFTA rewrite suggests he’s trying to shore up his left flank against such attacks.</p><p data-elm-loc="13" class="">“Joe
Biden believes that the agreement the Trump Administration has
negotiated is a gift to big pharmaceutical companies," Biden spokesman
Andrew Bates tells me, adding that “its labor and environmental
provisions must be strengthened, in a fully-enforceable fashion." Many
of the other presidential candidates provided the Citizens Trade
Campaign with statements echoing these concerns.</p><p data-elm-loc="14" class="">All
this also reflects movement in the Democratic Party towards a more
progressive overall position on trade, and these criticisms of NAFTA
provide a kind of template around which a partywide consensus might
start to form in opposition to Trump on this issue.</p><p data-elm-loc="15" class="">As <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/20/how-democrats-can-beat-trump-trade/?utm_term=.b9eedc7b7ba8" target="_blank" class="">economist Jared Bernstein explains</a>,
Trump is vulnerable on trade even though he successfully exploited
general dissatisfaction over the issue in 2016, because his actual
agenda hasn’t sufficiently focused on workers (copyright protections
don’t necessarily mean more manufacturing jobs). What’s more, his trade
wars have been motivated by a reflexive anti-globalization posture, and
are causing disruptions that are harming his key constituencies. </p><p data-elm-loc="16" class="">That’s why <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/21/big-disconnect-economy-is-popular-trumps-economic-agenda-is-not/?utm_term=.8046d494c723" target="_blank" class="">polling shows</a> that Trump’s trade and China policies are under water, even <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1130931334229221376" target="_blank" class="">in the industrial Midwest</a>.</p><p data-elm-loc="17" class="">By
contrast, Democrats can stand for restoring sensible, reality-based
international cooperation and deal-making to the heart of our trade
agenda. As Bernstein points out, this can also include industrial policy
-- along the lines of what <a href="https://medium.com/@teamwarren/a-plan-for-economic-patriotism-13b879f4cfc7" target="_blank" class="">Warren has proposed</a>
-- that includes government efforts to help industries such as green
technology compete globally and to assist smaller companies in assisting
in global supply chains.</p><p data-elm-loc="18" class="">Part of such an
agenda could include a better renegotiated NAFTA -- that is, a more
pro-worker, pro-environment international agreement. Though there will
be extensive battling in the primaries over this issues, the Democratic
candidates appear to have edged in the direction of such a consensus.</p></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class="">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; " class=""><div class="">Arthur Stamoulis</div><div class="">Citizens Trade Campaign</div><div class="">(202) 494-8826</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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