The candidates were asked about some trade/climate issues in last night's debate. Here's what they said:
David Muir: (52:49)
... I want to turn to climate change and jobs here in America. President Trump just signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, many call it an updated NAFTA. But it does include incentives to make cars here in North America and it does open Canadian markets for American dairy farmers. Senator Sanders, as we sit here in New Hampshire tonight, both New Hampshire senators Maggie Hassan and Senator Jeanne Shaheen supported this, calling it a real win for workers and for farmers. You voted no, because you said you believe it takes us back years on climate. Were the senators from New Hampshire wrong?Bernie Sanders: (53:26)
Yes. I mean, it’s a disagreement, but if you look at every environmental group in this country, including the Sunrise organization, we’re so proud to have their support, because we have introduced the most comprehensive climate change proposal I think ever authored by a presidential candidate. But they are saying, what the environmental groups are saying, we’re simply exporting fossil fuel emissions to Mexico. There is not one word in that trade agreement that deals with climate change and I don’t know how in 2020 you can do that. Second of all, there is, in terms of outsourcing of jobs, a major crisis in this country. Nobody believes that under this Trump trade agreement that they will not be continued and significant outsourcing of jobs into low wage Mexico, where workers are paid in some cases less than $2 an hour. So I think the right vote was the vote against that agreement. I don’t apologize for that.George S.: (54:36)
Senator Sanders, thank you. I do want to go to Senator Klobuchar. You’ve heard what Senator Sanders just said there. He said not one word on climate in the trade deal. So why did you vote yes?Amy Klobuchar: (54:44)
Well, first of all, I want to defend the honor of the incredible two senators from New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, who work so hard for this state every day and I voted with them. Why did I vote with them? Because there were some major improvements in this trade agreement when it comes to labor inspections, when it comes to getting rid of a sweetheart pharma deal that was in place and when it comes to climate change, I think we have to have a North American trading block. We have to have Mexico and Canada and America working together and the best way to take on climate change as president, yes, I’ll work to make this a part of every future trade agreement, but the best way to take on climate change is by getting back into the international climate change agreement, which I will do on day one. It is bringing back the clean power rules. It is bringing back the gas mileage standards and it is introducing sweeping legislation to put a price on carbon and you cannot divorce trade from that, and in future trade agreements, that should be part of our negotiations. But I’m telling you right now, having no trade agreement with Canada and Mexico puts us at such a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with China and pushing China to do better when it comes to climate change.George S.: (55:59)
Senator Klobuchar, thank you. Senator Warren, you voted yes as well.Elizabeth Warren: (56:03)
Yes I did, and I’ll tell you why, because there are a lot of farmers around this country that are really hurting because of Donald Trump’s trade policies. There are a lot of workers who are hurting because they can’t get enforcement of any workers’ rights. So this NAFTA provision, after a lot of negotiation with Democrats, Senator Sherrod Brown helped make it a whole lot better. This makes things somewhat better for workers and for farmers and when I see a law that makes things somewhat better for hardworking people in this country, I’m saying, I’ll sign up for that and then I’ll get up tomorrow morning and I’ll start working hard for a better trade deal on climate, a better trade deal that has a basic coherence to it. Everyone wants to get to the American market. We should be raising standards on climate around the world to get access to our market.George S.: (56:56)
Mr. Steyer.Tom Steyer: (56:58)
Yeah, I got to agree with Bernie Sanders, I do. Senator Warren is right. Everybody wants to get into our market, and that’s how we convince them that they’ve got to be right on climate too. That we have to stop making foreign policy decisions in the old way. Yeah, of course, we want to make things better for American workers, and it’s absolutely critical that when we think about trade policy, we’re thinking about it from the point of view of the American people, not of the American corporations. That’s a huge positive change. And I agree with the senators on that, but there’s something else going on here when we think about our foreign policy. We talked about whether it was right to kill General Soleimani, and there was no discussion in that about where that leaves the United States in the community of nations around the world. So if we actually want to be the leaders of the world, the leaders of the free world who can actually negotiate a climate treaty around the world that sticks, that makes a difference, we’re going to have to put climate first, and when we think about doing the wrong thing, the way Mr. Trump did with General Soleimani, we have to ask, does that help us build a coalition of countries around the world to do the right thing? It absolutely does not. Being all by ourselves, being the Empire in the Star Wars movie does not put us in a position to get done what we need to get done as the leader of the free world. So in fact, the USMCA is something, that’s the first step, but the second step is exactly what Bernie Sanders is saying. Use access to our market as a negotiating thing to make sure not only that we represent American workers, but that we represent the American people in the long run and we make sure that we get a safe climate deal.Amy Klobuchar: (58:50)
One of the things about being in the arena is you have to make decisions all the time and these things aren’t always exactly how you would do them. But in this case, if you want to criticize Trump for not ever having any friends, and I would agree, he always sides with tyrants over innocents. He always sides with dictators over allies, but I think you’ve got to have some friends and those two countries, our neighbors, may not be perfect, but they are our friends, and we have a president that literally blames everyone in the world, and we have not talked about this enough. He blames Barack Obama for everything that goes wrong. He blames his federal reserve chair that he appointed himself. He blames the King of Denmark, who does that? He blames the prime minister of Canada for, he claims, cutting him out of the Canadian version of Home Alone 2, who does that? That’s what Donald Trump does. So my point here is that when we have opportunities to work with our allies, and New Hampshire is such a great example of this, New Hampshire, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, with senators like Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassen, who believe we need to work with NATO and the rest of the world who sees it as a smaller state, but a state that is a piece of the world. We cannot be alone, and that trade agreement was not perfect, but the point of it is, if we start isolating ourselves from the rest of the world, we are going to hurt ourselves economically and we are going to hurt our nation’s security.
