Wednesday at the Washington Examiner’s “Examining Trade” event, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said “it’s hard to articulate any clear Republican vision.”
On China, Sasse said, “Frankly, I’ve read lots of stories the last three or four days about the trade deal and about the particulars of how the U.S won. I have yet to find a story that actually has substantive facts underneath it to explain what the deal is. So if the headlines are right about this China deal, I’m ready to pop champagne corks as well, but I have yet to find any story that has substantial details about this alleged deal. It looks to me we are losing this trade negotiation with China but the administration has done a masterful job of spinning a lot of reporters.”
On NAFTA, Sasse said, “First of all, NAFTA was a great deal for the U.S. and for Mexico and for Canada. The idea that NAFTA was a bad deal is just not borne out by any actual data.”
On free trade, Sasse continued, “I don’t know what the Republican Party is right now, in general. That’s not a specific attack on anything from the last 15 or 18 months.”
Discussing artificial intelligence undercutting manufacturing jobs in the future, Sasse said, “The digital revolution is undermining long term jobs.”
He continued, “These parties should outline a vision of where this country is headed and neither of them are doing that. They are both living a retro nostalgia game that is mostly about rage based politics. So going from being a pro-free-trade party to apparently an anti-free-trade party is not because anybody thinks that is the right constructive play for the future but because it’s the right way to capture a whole bunch of angst in the short term. So I can’t speak to the Republican Party on trade because much more broadly it’s hard to articulate any clear Republican vision.”
He added, “It is fundamentally cruel to lie to people and say by government policy we are going to make your community stable again.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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