Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said the trade deal President Donald Trump signed in 2018 is better than the trade deal he voted for in 1993 as a senator.
Biden admitted that the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) was better than the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in an interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper that aired Thursday. However, he refused to give Trump credit for the USMCA instead saying the House of Representatives was primarily responsible.
“It is better than NAFTA,” Biden told Tapper. (RELATED: Trump Signs USMCA Trade Deal At The White House)
“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, but because the overall trade policy and how he deals with it made everything worse.”
Former President Barack Obama and Biden campaigned in 2008 on renegotiating NAFTA, but did not do so during their term, The New York Times reported. Biden voted for NAFTA in November 1993.
“He renegotiated NAFTA and you didn’t,” Tapper said.
Biden responded, “Because we had a Republican congress that didn’t go along with us renegotiating it.”
Democrats held majorities in both the House and Senate between 2009 and 2011. The Obama administration said it was uninterested in renegotiating NAFTA in 2009, according to The Times.
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