White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow took issue with Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ suggestion that he would renegotiate trade deals if he became president and the damage his policies would do to the economy.
Kudlow defended the partial trade deal between the U.S. and China as “historic.”
"I don’t know why anyone would want to re-negotiate a historic trade deal with China, which has never happened before in our history," Kudlow told Fox Business Network's Stuart Varney on Thursday.
"I believe Senator Sanders' essentially socialist policies would do grave damage to the U.S. economy, which is in a boom right now," the veteran financial guru and former Ronald Reagan adviser said.
"I know Senator Sanders, I respect his views, but I have strong disagreements with him across the board on virtually everything," the veteran financial guru and former Ronald Reagan adviser said.
The China deal "is going to boost exports, intellectual property, financial services, currency stability," said Kudlow, who worked as Reagan’s budget deputy between 1981 and 1985.
"There are so many pluses in there. And this is a historic agreement that the president has negotiated," said Kudlow, who served as the Trump campaign's senior economic adviser.
Sanders, a Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist, said the deal "won't fix a failed trade policy that has destroyed 3.7 million U.S. jobs."
“Trump’s deal with China won't fix a failed trade policy that has destroyed 3.7 million U.S. jobs. I am proud to have voted against the disastrous 2000 China trade agreement. We need a trade policy that stops giant corporations from shipping jobs overseas and polluting our planet,” Sanders said in a tweet earlier this month.
Sanders doubled down on his criticism of Trump on Wednesday. Sanders said he would “immediately begin renegotiating” the new trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada on his first day in office as president.
Sanders has long opposed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as USMCA, which Trump signed into law Wednesday.
The Vermont senator was the only candidate to say he opposed the deal during the last debate of Democratic presidential contenders. Sanders says the agreement does not address climate change or provide sufficient labor protections.
“The NAFTA 2.0 that Trump signed today is an absolute disaster,” Sanders said in a statement. “In addition to doing nothing to stop the offshoring of jobs, the deal is a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry at a time when climate change threatens our planet.”
He also said the deal does nothing to prevent companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. from dumping waste and pollution in Mexico, Bloomberg reported.
“It does not even mention the words ‘climate change,’ the most existential threat facing our planet,” Sanders said.
"I just don’t know why a sitting senator running for president is going to stand there and say, 'We’re going to rip the whole thing apart,'" Kudlow said. "What good does that do?" Kudlow asked.
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