This is from an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper that aired yesterday:
TAPPER: Don't you think that one of the reasons why President Trump has been able to appeal to the blue-collar workers that you talk about is because of his message on trade?
And that message is, Washington, D.C., and Wall Street have sold you out, the trade deals have been about helping them, helping their bottom line, helping politicians, but not about you?
And he pointed to NAFTA, which you supported. He pointed to most favored nation status for China, which you supported. There are other factors too, of course, automation.
BIDEN: Yes.
TAPPER: But the idea, the pitch that too many of these trade deals screwed you.
BIDEN: And then look what he did.
Look what his tax cut did, the multibillion-dollar, trillion-dollar tax cut that went mainly to the very wealthy and to corporate America. What did it do? They got a reward for offshoring jobs. They got a reward for taking.
So, you had 7,000 jobs right off the bat go abroad. America -- these are contracts that the federal government gives to contractors to do things for the federal government or for the community.
And what happens? They get a break if they go abroad. Their taxes get cut.
That why I was out here today talking about two things. One, if you're going to offshore jobs with federal contracts, offshore jobs, you're going to get a 10 percent penalty for those jobs you send overseas, because what happens?
You send it overseas, because there's a supplier that makes the product cheaper. You bring it back. You get a benefit, a tax break for it.
And where does it go? It doesn't go to the employees, by the way, even when it occurs. It goes into the pockets of the CEOs and/or to buy back their stock, to raise the value of their stock.
And so what I'm insisting on -- and I will get it passed -- that is a 10 percent surtax on you, if you ship, for every job you ship overseas, for anything that comes back, and, secondly, making sure that, if you invest in America, you refurbish a plant, you build a new plant here, we will provide you a 10 percent advance on the cost of doing that, encourage people to come back and build here in America, because we've had this buy America provision, America first provision, buy America, for over almost 100 years.
It's never been -- it's never been moved. And we -- now we have the highest trade deficit we've had in modern history.
TAPPER: So, you asked, and what did he do after he got elected?
And you brought up the tax bill. Something else he did is, he renegotiated NAFTA.
BIDEN: He did.
TAPPER: He renegotiated NAFTA.
Now, when you ran for president, and when Barack Obama ran for president, you both said you would renegotiate NAFTA. You didn't. He did. Nancy Pelosi said that the USMCA, which President Trump signed into law, is a -- quote -- "victory for America's workers."
Does he deserve credit for that?
BIDEN: No, I think -- remember, he didn't -- he wasn't the one that pushed that particular one that passed.
The House amended the bill, amended the bill, so he couldn't...
TAPPER: He signed it.
BIDEN: No, that was a big deal, though.
Here's what he -- they amended. He was giving pharma a way out, giving them a gigantic break, just like he's doing now with pharma. If you -- they are building plants overseas and getting tax breaks for it. That's what it was about with him.
TAPPER: All right.
BIDEN: And they said, no, no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to...
TAPPER: But he renegotiated NAFTA, and you didn't, is the point. I mean...
BIDEN: Because we had a Republican Congress that wouldn't go along with us renegotiating it.
TAPPER: But doesn't he deserve some credit for that?
It's better. The USMCA is better than NAFTA.
BIDEN: It is better than NAFTA, but look what the overall trade policy has done, even with NAFTA.
We now have this gigantic deficit in trade with Mexico, not because NAFTA wasn't made better, because his overall trade policy and how he deals with it made everything worse.
TAPPER: I guess my only point is, I'm a blue-collar guy sitting in Macomb County, Michigan, if I were that person.
BIDEN: Yes.
TAPPER: And I'm sitting here listening to your pitch, and I'm thinking, I like what he has to say, but he's part of the establishment that's been selling my jobs down the river. He supported NAFTA. He supported most favored nation status for China.
And Trump did renegotiate NAFTA, and Obama and Biden didn't.
BIDEN: Well, I will tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of the Depression. The president put me in charge of that to do something about it.
In the process of that, I was the one who was given responsibility to make sure General Motors and Chrysler didn't go bankrupt. And so we made sure they didn't, brought 80,000 jobs here to Michigan and to the automobile industry; 80,000 good-paying jobs came back. He's lost 50,000 of those jobs since he's been president.
The fact of the matter is, NAFTA was not a deal that was sold. When Bush said they were going to have enforcement mechanisms in NAFTA, they didn't do it. That's why, after it passed, and he did not insist on that, I was against NAFTA and we tried to begin to change it, because it didn't keep the deal that was made. There was not -- the enforcement mechanisms were abandoned.
And so -- but, look, here's what else he's doing. We're talking about trade -- what has he done with trade to give -- to create more jobs in the United States? What's happened with his trade policy?
Look what he's done with China. It's a disgrace. What he's done, he's allowed the -- corporate America to be able to make money by continuing to export American jobs. It's not made in America. Make it in another place.
For example, those -- those carry bags that the military are using, they're supposed to be made -- and they are being deployed -- made in America. They're made in China. They're made in China. He doesn't do anything about any of that.
TAPPER: Let me ask you about China, because, in 2011, when you were vice president, you said -- quote -- "It is in our self-interest that China continue to prosper."
A lot of people think that allowing China into the World Trade Organization, which you supported, extending most favored nation status to China, which you supported, that those steps allowed China to take advantage of the United States by using our own open trade deals against us.
BIDEN: No.
TAPPER: Do you think, in retrospect, that you were naive about China?
BIDEN: No.
Here's the thing. In the context of that, we wanted China to grow. We don't want to have a war with China.
I said to Xi Jinping when I was -- I -- you may remember, the president wanted me to spend time with him as vice president. He was going to be president. And he couldn't do it. So I traveled around the world with him.
He asked. He said: "Why do you keep saying you're a Pacific power?"
I said: "Because we are. We are a Pacific power. and if we weren't, you would not have been able to have any stability at all."
It's in our interest that China be stable. It's not in our interest for China to take advantage of us, not in our interest to take advantage.
So, what has Trump done? He's poked his finger in the eye of all our friends and allies, and he's embraced every autocrat in the world.
And it's now -- we make up 15 percent of the world's economy -- 25 percent of the world's economy, and we have lost all our friends. We've lost all our friends.
The way to keep China in line is to make two things clear. One, we're going to insist -- we're going to play by international rules. So, when Xi Jinping said to me, we're going to make sure we have these air identification zones you can't fly through, I said, no, no that's not true. They are in international airspace. He said, what are you going to do about it? I said, we're going to fly through it.
So, we flew our bombers through it, flew our jets through it -- through it. Same way with what we did in terms of taking a significant portion of the Navy, 60 percent, and getting it into Asia to make sure they could not control those sea lanes, which they were doing.
What has Trump done? He's done nothing about it. He's done nothing about it. And what has he done with regard to our friends like Japan and other -- and South Korea? He's made some cockamamie deal to his good friend, sending love letters to Kim Jung-un.
I mean, what in God's -- I mean, to Kim in South -- I mean, in North Korea. What in God's name is that all about? He gave him legitimacy.
We had firm, firm constraints on what they could buy and what they could sell in their economies. He's blown it. He's giving them so much credibility. They're closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before. He did the same thing in Iran.
I mean, this America first has made America alone.
Of course, Biden could have said something like, "Actually, we did renegotiate NAFTA through the TPP, which Mexico and Canada are part of." But he probably thinks mentioning TPP could hurt him politically, so he is staying away from it.
He's right about USMCA being influenced by House Democrats. He may need to refine his talking points a bit to make that more coherent and clear, and explain what he thinks the flaws were with NAFTA and how USMCA fixed them. But arguing that USMCA is good because of Democratic input seems like a safe political strategy.
On China, his main message seems to be that America going it alone here is a bad idea. That also seems like a safe political strategy.
More generally, Biden has been back and forth on trade agreements, voting for some but not for others. He could probably play that up a bit, arguing that he is not ideological on trade, although it's not clear to me on the face of things why he voted for particular trade agreements and against others.
How will any of this play to actual voters? Who knows! I'm not convinced that many people care strongly enough about trade for it to make much of a difference. Both candidates use "Buy America"-type rhetoric and I doubt this issue will be the deciding factor in how people vote. But Trump loves the issue, so it's going to keep coming up regardless.
