During Tuesday evening’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden pointed out that American jobs have been “exported” from the United States economy for decades — ignoring his role in causing the problem.
“For too many decades, we imported products and exported jobs,” Biden said during his second State of the Union address.
Biden claims that "trickle down economics" and the "view from Park Ave" were responsible for American manufacturing jobs being sent overseas.
I'm no expert but I think NAFTA and normalizing trade with China are more responsible for that both of which Biden supported as a senator pic.twitter.com/4ovMOO4jrr
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 31, 2023
His comments are true — American jobs have been eliminated from the U.S. economy for decades, with Biden’s help.
“Remember the jobs that went away. You remember them, don’t you?” Biden says as if he didn’t vote for NAFTA or give China “most favored nation” status
— Kyle Martinsen (@KyleMartinsen_) February 8, 2023
Breitbart News addressed the comments in a recent fact check, explaining: “The claim is true. From 2001 to 2018, U.S. free trade with China eliminated 3.7 million American jobs from the economy — 2.8 million of which were lost in American manufacturing. During that same period, at least 50,000 American manufacturing plants closed down.”
Meanwhile, the exodus of working and middle-class jobs came while then-Senator Biden was supporting allowing China to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Biden has consistently defended his support of China joining the WTO and normalizing trade relations with the hostile communist country, claiming while serving as vice president that “It is in our self-interest that China continue to prosper.”
He was asked about that comment by left-wing CNN host Jake Tapper during a town hall in 2020.
“A lot of people think that allowing China into the World Trade Organization, which you supported, extending Most Favored Nation status to China, which you supported, that those steps allowed China to take advantage of the United States by using our own open trade deals against us. Do you think, in retrospect, you were naive about China?” Tapper asked.
“No, here is the thing. In the context of that, we want China to grow. We don’t want a war with China,” Biden responded.
The president has also expressed support for the terribly unbalanced North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), despite the fact that the agreement made it easier for corporations to outsource American jobs to Mexico. In 1997, Biden claimed that NAFTA would help American workers in the auto industry. However, years later the workers that he cited in his argument had their jobs outsourced to Mexico.
Nearly a million American jobs have been lost directly because of NAFTA, according to data reported by Public Citizen. The true number may be much higher, as the million jobs lost are only the ones recognized by the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which doesn’t necessarily indicate the actual number of jobs lost.
At least 700,000 American jobs have been eliminated by free trade with Mexico alone, with states in the Rust Belt being hit the hardest.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump replaced NAFTA with a deal that was much fairer to American jobs, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — which took effect on July 1, 2020.
