Senate

Sanders: I’ll work with Trump on trade

by Jordain Carney - 01/23/17 12:03 PM ET

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) praised President Trump Monday for pulling out of a massive Asia-Pacific trade deal, offering to work with him on the issue in the future.

On Monday, Trump signed an executive order to end U.S. participation in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), former President Obama’s top trade priority during his second term. The Trump administration is expected to focus instead on bilateral trade deals with the countries included in the deal.

“Now is the time to develop a new trade policy that helps working families, not just multi-national corporations,” Sanders said in a statement. “If President Trump is serious about a new policy to help American workers then I would be delighted to work with him.”

{mosads}Sanders hailed the move, saying the TPP is “dead and gone.”

“For the past 30 years, we have had a series of trade deals … which have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs and caused a ‘race to the bottom’ which has lowered wages for American workers,” he said.

Trump is also expected to renegotiate the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement.

Top Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.), broke with Obama over the TPP.

Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Ed Markey (Mass.) and Warren introduced legislation last week that would have required the president to withdraw from TPP and take away the administration’s ability to fast-track it through Congress.

Congress passed a separate measure in 2015 giving the president trade-promotion authority, which allows trade deals to pass the legislature by a simple majority and with no amendments.

Tags Bernie Sanders Chuck Schumer Debbie Stabenow Ed Markey Elizabeth Warren Jeff Merkley Tammy Baldwin