Biden and Sanders’ fight over trade is a war for the future of the Democratic Party

Listening to Sanders’ campaign ads and speeches in the past week, you’d be forgiven for thinking Biden was a heartless corporate capitalist, a friend to the “banksters” who robbed people’s pensions. 

“The community has been decimated by trade deals,” a union auto worker in Michigan says to the camera in a recent Sanders campaign TV ad. “Only one candidate for president has consistently opposed every disastrous trade deal. And that candidate is Bernie Sanders.” 

Sanders has worked hard to drive home this characterization of his opponent. “In Michigan, the people here have been devastated, devastated in Flint and Detroit, by these disastrous trade agreements that Joe Biden voted for,” Sanders said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

But experts say Biden’s approach to trade is broader, and more complex, than Sanders would have voters believe. 

“Biden is not just someone who delivers a message of open markets and laissez faire – his world view is more nuanced than that,” said Jack Caporal, an associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an expert in global trade policy. 

“It goes back to a line that the Obama administration used, which was basically, we live in a global world, and if the United States retreats and isolates itself, and is no longer seen as a credible rule maker, we’ll become a rule taker,” Caporal said. “Biden sees trade as a way for the United States to remain a credible rule maker.” 

Trade is part of Biden’s broader argument about U.S. influence across the globe, said Brew, of SMU.

“What’s happening right now on a global scale, with oil prices falling, and global markets struggling to respond to the coronavirus, this could pull in Biden’s favor,” he said. “By linking trade and foreign policy, Biden can say it’s time that we reassert our influence in the world, and lead on these issues, because a world without U.S. leadership includes a host of new instabilities.”

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/biden-vs-sanders-trade-fight-is-war-for-future-of-democratic-party.html