Democratic candidates running for president were split on supporting the updated North American Free Trade Agreement negotiated between President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during Thursday night’s debate.
“This is a modest improvement over what we have right now,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose opposition to trade deals were a hallmark of his 2016 run for the Democratic nomination.
“It is not going to stop outsourcing, it is not going to stop corporations from moving to Mexico, where workers make $2 an hour,” he added. The deal does require increased Mexican wages in certain sectors.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said the deal was a significant improvement over both the existing NAFTA and the original version of the deal Trump negotiated last year.
“I believe that we have a change with this agreement,” she said, noting that it had the support of trade skeptics such as Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), who had not voted for previous trade deals.
Most of the customers for American goods, she said, were outside the country, and newly negotiated enforceability mechanisms on labor and environmental measures, plus changes on pharmaceutical policy, had made the deal worthwhile.
“I would not have voted for the agreement that President Trump put forward,” she said.
The House overwhelmingly passed the update trade deal, called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, just hours before the debate, 385-41. The Senate is expected to approve it in January.
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