The Democratic debates have (thankfully!) been narrowed from 20 to 10 candidates. Many of them had a chance to weigh in on trade policy at the debate last night. Here's what they said:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Welcome back. We want to turn now to national security and the foreign policy issue that has such a direct impact here at home. The U.S. relationship with China, trade, and President Trump's tariffs. We received more than 100 questions from viewers wanting to know how all of you are going to handle these tariffs.
And, Mr. Yang, let me begin with you. Would you repeal the tariffs on your first day in office? And if so, would you risk losing leverage in our trade relationship with China?
YANG: I would not repeal the tariffs on day one, but I would let the Chinese know that we need to hammer out a deal, because right now, the tariffs are pummeling producers and farmers in Iowa who have absolutely nothing to do with the imbalances that we have with China.
A CEO friend of mine was in China recently and he said that he saw pirated U.S. intellectual property on worker workstations to the tune of thousands of dollars per head. And he said, one, how can my workers compete against that? And, two, think about all the lost revenue to American companies.
So, the imbalances are real. But we have to let the Chinese know that we recognize that President Trump has pursued an arbitrary and haphazard trade policy that has had victims on both sides.
So, no to repealing the tariffs immediately, but yes to making sure we come to a deal that addresses the concerns of American companies and American producers.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Mayor Pete, let me take that question — let me take that question to you, because you've seen President Trump's tweets. He says what's going to happen here is the Chinese are just going to wait him out so that they can get a Democrat who they can take advantage of.
How do you think about China? We've seen President Trump call President Xi both an enemy and a friend.
BUTTIGIEG: Well, the president clearly has no strategy.
You know, when I first got into this race, I remember President Trump scoffed and said he'd like to see me making a deal with Xi Jinping. I'd like to see him making a deal with Xi Jinping.
(LAUGHTER)
Is it just me, or was that supposed to happen in, like, April? It's one more example of a commitment not made. When that happens on the international stage, people take note, not just our competitors, our adversaries, but also our allies take note of the inability of the United States to keep its word or follow through on its plans. And when that happens, there are serious consequences.
We saw it at the G7. The leaders of some of the greatest powers and economies of the world sitting to talk about one of the greatest challenges in the world, climate change, and there was literally an empty chair where American leadership could have been.
The problem is, this is a moment when American leadership is needed more than ever, whether it's in Hong Kong, where those protesters for democracy need to know that they have a friend in the United States, or anywhere around the world where increasingly we see dictators throwing their weight around. The world needs America, but it can't be just any America.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you repeal the tariffs?
BUTTIGIEG: I would have a strategy that would include the tariffs as leverage, but it's not about the tariffs. Look, what's going on right now is a president who has reduced the entire China challenge into a question of tariffs, when what we know is that the tariffs are coming down on us more than anybody else and there's a lack of a bigger strategy.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Klobuchar, you've actually supported the tariffs on steel.
KLOBUCHAR: What we've got right now, though, George, it's not a focused tariff on steel. What he has done here, he has assessed these tariffs on our allies. He has put us in the middle of this trade war and he is treating our farmers and our workers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos. And if we are not careful, he is going to bankrupt this country.
One forecast recently says that it has already cost us 300,000 jobs, all right? There is soybeans that are mounting up in bins all over the Midwest, in my state of Minnesota and in Iowa.
So what I think we need to do is to go back to the negotiating table — that's what I would do. I wouldn't have put all these tariffs in place. And I wouldn't have had a trade policy where on August 1st he announces he's going to have tariffs on $300 billion of goods, on August 13th, he cuts it in half, a week later, he says he's going to reduce taxes, the day after that, he says he's going to do it.
The leaders of the world are watching this, and it undermines our strength as a nation. And, yes, we want fair trade, but we must work with the rest of the world. And he has made a mockery of focused trade policy, which I think means enforcement, like we've done in northern Minnesota, passing bills, getting President Obama to do more on that, so that our workers can benefit, so we are importing, exporting goods and making sure that it's a competitive policy where our goal is that we are making things, inventing things, and exporting to the world. He is defeating that goal.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Castro, you actually, in one of the previous debates, identified China as the most serious national security threat to our country. I want to pick up on what Senator Klobuchar was saying. She said she would go back to the negotiating table. The question is, what do you do for leverage? Where do you get it?
CASTRO: Well, look, I agree with those who have said that this erratic, haphazard trade war is hurting American families. As Senator Klobuchar said, 300,000 American jobs. It's estimated that it's cost $600 to the average American family. Just a couple of days ago, 60 percent of Americans said that they believe that we're in for a recession next year.
So when I become president, I would immediately begin to negotiate with China to ratchet down that trade war. We have leverage there. I also believe, though, that we need to return to a leader when it comes to things like human rights.
We have millions of Uighurs, for instance, in China that right now are being imprisoned and mistreated.
(APPLAUSE)
And in North Korea, this president is elevating a dictator. We need to stop that. We need to return to ensuring that America leads again on human rights. When it comes to this trade war, I would immediately begin ratcheting that trade war down. We have leverage in that discussion.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Warren, let me bring you in on this conversation. President Obama signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In part, it was designed to rein in China, to bring China into some kind of regulation. What do you think he got wrong?
WARREN: So our trade policy in America has been broken for decades, and it has been broken because it works for giant multinational corporations and not for much of anyone else. These are giant corporations that, shoot, if they can save a nickel by moving a job to a foreign country, they'll do it in a heartbeat.
And yet for decades now, who's been whispering in the ears of our trade negotiators? Who has shaped our trade policy? It's been the giant corporations. It's been their lobbyists and their executives.
The way we change our trade policy in America is, first, the procedures. Who sits at the table? I want to negotiate trade with unions at the table. I want to negotiate it with small farmers at the table. I want to negotiate it with environmentalists at the table. I want to negotiate with human rights activists at the table.
And you asked the question about leverage. If I can just respond to that one, the leverage, are you kidding? Everybody wants access to the American market. That means that we have the capacity to say right here in America, you want to come sell goods to American consumers? Then you got to raise your standards. You've got to raise your labor standards. You've got to raise your environmental standards...
(APPLAUSE)
... so our companies can compete on a level playing field. We can use trade not to undermine American workers and not to undermine American farms and not to undermine small businesses in this country. We can use trade to help build a stronger economy.
(APPLAUSE)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Harris, how would your trade policy differ from President Obama's?
HARRIS: Well, first of all, I have no criticism of that more than just looking at where we are now, which is we've got a guy in the White House who has been erratic on trade policy. He conducts trade policy by tweet, frankly born out of his fragile ego. It has resulted in farmers in Iowa with soybeans rotting in bins, looking at bankruptcy.
When we look at this issue, my trade policy, under a Harris administration, is always going to be about saying, we need to export American products, not American jobs. And to do that, we have to have a meaningful trade policy.
I am not a protectionist Democrat. Look, we need to sell our stuff. And that means we need to sell it to people overseas. That means we need trade policies that allow that to happen.
You asked earlier about China. It's a complicated relationship. We have to hold China accountable. They steal our products, including our intellectual property. They dump substandard products into our economy. They need to be held accountable.
We also need to partner with China on climate and the crisis that that presents. We need to partner with China on the issue of North Korea. I am on — and I think the only person on this stage — the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee. We need a partner on the issue of North Korea.
But the bottom line is this. Donald Trump in office on trade policy, you know, he reminds me of that guy in "The Wizard of Oz," you know, when you pull back the curtain, it's a really small dude?
(LAUGHTER)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay. I’m not even going to take the bait, Senator Harris. But I am going to take...
HARRIS: Oh, George, it wasn't about you.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm going to take this to Senator Sanders right now.
SANDERS: Well, there is a reason — there is a reason why, in the last 45 years, the average American today, despite an explosion of technology and worker productivity, is not making a penny more than he or she made 45 years ago. And one of the reasons is that, for decades, we have had disastrous trade policies.
I got to say to my good friend, Joe Biden, Joe and I strongly disagree on trade. I helped lead the opposition to NAFTA and PNTR, which cost this country over 4 million good-paying jobs.
(APPLAUSE)
And what happened is people who had those jobs ended up getting other jobs making 50 percent of what they made in manufacturing.
So Trump, obviously, hasn't a clue. Trump thinks that trade policy is a tweet at 3 o'clock in the morning. What we have got to do is develop a trade policy that represents workers, represents the farmers in the Midwest and elsewhere, who are losing billions right now because of Trump's policy, a trade policy which understands that if a company shuts down in America and goes abroad, and then thinks they're going to get online to get a lucrative federal contract, under Bernie Sanders, they got another guess coming.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Vice President Biden, he invoked your name.
BIDEN: Yeah, well, look, we're either going to make policy or China's going to make the rules of the road. We make up 25 percent of the world economy. We need another 25 percent to join us.
And I think Elizabeth — Senator Warren is correct. At the table has to be labor and at the table have to be environmentalists. The fact of the matter is, China — the problem isn't the trade deficit, the problem is they're stealing our intellectual property. The problem is they're violating the WTO. They're dumping steel on us. That's a different issue than whether or not they're dumping agricultural products on us.
In addition to that, we're in a position where, if we don't set the rules, we, in fact, are going to find ourselves with China setting the rules. And that's why you need to organize the world to take on China, to stop the corrupt practices that are underway.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Booker, close out this round.
BOOKER: Sure. There’s one point we’re really missing on the stage right now, which is the fact that Donald Trump’s America first policy is actually an America isolated, an America alone policy.
BIDEN: Exactly right.
BOOKER: From trade to battling China to the global crisis of climate change, the challenges in the Middle East, he is pulling us away from our allies, out of the Iran deal, out of the Paris climate accords.
And on trade, he's deciding to take on China, while at the same time taking on tariff battles with all of our allies. You literally have him using a national security waiver to put tariffs on Canada. Now, look, I'm the only person on this stage that finds Trudeau's hair very menacing, but they are not a national security threat.
(LAUGHTER)
We cannot go up against China alone. This is a president that has a better relationship with dictators, like Duterte and Putin, than he does with Merkel and Macron. We are the strongest nation on the planet Earth, and our strength is multiplied and magnified when we stand with our allies in common cause and common purpose. That's how we beat China. That's how we beat climate change on the planet Earth, and that's how American values are the ones that lead on issues of trade and workers' rights.
My quick take on each candidate's answer:
-- Yang didn't say much of anything.
-- Buttigieg had a good one-liner and a good overall take, although I'm skeptical of the "tariffs as leverage" theory (that's being tested right now and we'll see how it goes.)
-- Klobuchar's answer was vague.
-- Castro's answer was decent, although he didn't really answer the leverage point. (One thing I would say here is that it's not clear that tariff threats give us leverage, and generally speaking, if we are willing to do some liberalizing ourselves, other countries are also willing.)
-- Warren ignored the "TPP reining in China" part of the question, which is actually an interesting idea, and just repeated her usual talking points. I understand her general point about using access to the U.S. market as leverage to get others to raise their standards. In practice, though, I think this can be more complicated than she is imagining, in a lot of ways.
-- The "I am not a protectionist Democrat" line from Harris will have great appeal to policy wonks at free trade-oriented think tanks. We'll see how it plays to primary and general election voters. I hope this is where the electorate is, but we'll see!
-- Sanders repeated his usual talking points.
-- Biden was fine and said many things he usually says.
-- Booker's strong defense of Canada was heartening and his reference to Justin Trudeau's hair was funny for anyone who knows who Justin Trudeau is (might not be too many American voters though!).
