Sen. Sanders believes that decades of unfettered free trade policies have been unrelentingly bad for American workers, and have largely contributed to our shrinking middle class, job loss and the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor. He believes that if the United States is to remain a major industrial power – producing real products and creating good paying jobs – we must implement new trade policies that protect not just the profits of large corporations, but the jobs of working people of our country. “Nobody I know believes we should place a wall around this country. Trade is a good thing, but we must begin negotiating fair trade agreements that reflect the interests of working families in America, working families in other countries, and not just large multinational corporations and the CEOs who help write these trade agreements,” Sen. Sanders has said.

Senator Sanders not only voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993, but marched against it. He voted against Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, the United States-Korea Trade Agreement and DR-CAFTA. He helped lead the grassroots effort across the country to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And despite some modest gains, he opposed President Trump’s United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement because it will not stop the outsourcing of jobs or address the climate emergency.

Senator Sanders believes we must create new trade policies that benefit the working families of our nation, workers in other countries, consumers and the environment – and not just multi-national corporations. This means encouraging manufacturing in this country for industries ranging from industrial steel and solar panels, to the production of the foods and commodities we purchase every day. It also means taking bold action to defeat the existential crisis of climate change by cutting carbon emissions around the world.