Sen. Ben Sasse on Saturday praised President Donald Trump's call for eliminating G-7 trade barriers and tariffs in Quebec, saying that "I would happily carry his bag to every single meeting of those negotiations."
"If the president is actually serious about leading the expansion of a G-7 no-tariff, free-trade agreement, that's tremendous, tremendous news — for the U.S. and for the free nations of the world," the Nebraska Republican, long a Trump critic, said on Twitter.
"I would happily carry his bag to every single meeting of those negotiations."
Before leaving Canada early for Singapore for Tuesday's meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, President Trump said he pressed for the G-7 countries to eliminate all tariffs, trade barriers and subsidies in their trading practices.
He reiterated his longstanding view that the U.S. has been taken advantage of in global trade.
"We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing and that ends," Trump said.
U.S. farmers, the president said, had been harmed by tariffs and other barriers and warned that trading partners would need to provide him with more favorable terms.
"It’s going to stop or we’ll stop trading with them," he said.
Sasse — whose state represents the fifth largest in agricultural exports, including soybeans, beef, corn and animal feed — also cautioned Trump against overplaying the "victim-talk."
"But the path to more trade begins with less whining on the global stage," the first-term senator said.
"The simple fact is that more trade has been overwhelmingly beneficial to U.S. families and to net U.S. job creation for 75 straight years, and pretending America has been taken advantage of that is, pretending that we're losers — isn't true.
"The constant victim-talk doesn't help anyone," Sasse continued. "It doesn't help trade negotiations.
"And it doesn't help U.S. citizens understand the disruption in our economy that is actually coming from more technology and more automation, not from free-trade agreements — which have overwhelmingly benefited American families.
"If the President were to use his negotiating skills to advance more trade, that would be very good news indeed," he said. "Let's see what happens."
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