- Title: Warren says U.S. should use trade deals to raise global standards
- Date: 30th July 2019
- Summary: TOLEDO, OHIO, UNITED STATES (JULY 29, 2019) (REUTERS) PEOPLE IN LINE AND ENTERING FOR ELIZABETH WARREN TOWN HALL WARREN SUPPORTER WEARING T-SHIRT THAT SAYS: "TOLEDO MAKES ME HAPPY" AND PAN TO PEOPLE IN LINE SUPPORTERS BUYING CAMPAIGN BUTTONS GENERAL VIEW OF SUPPORTERS CHEERING INSIDE EVENT AS WARREN WALKS ONTO STAGE (SOUNDBITE) (English) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, U.S. SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN, SAYING: "But before we start negotiating with anyone, we say, 'You've got to raise your standards. You've got to raise your labor standards. You've got to raise your environmental standards. You've got to raise your human rights standards.' We can't use trade as a way to drive down standards across the world. We need to use the leverage of American markets to drive up standards around the world." GENERAL VIEW OF WARREN ADDRESSING THE CROWD (SOUNDBITE) (English) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, U.S. SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN, SAYING: "This is our moment in American history. This is our chance to get organized, to build a grassroots movement, to persist and to build the America of our best values. Dream big. Fight hard. Let's win." AUDIENCE WATCHING (SOUNDBITE) (English) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, U.S. SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN, SAYING: "Donald Trump has vision. Or at least he says he does. He gets out and he says to all Americans, 'If your life's not working well, if your wages haven't gone up, if you feel the economic squeeze, if you're anxious, blame them. Blame people who don't look like you, blame people who aren't the same color as you, blame people who don't worship like you, blame people who weren't born the way you were born.' His plan is just to keep Americans divided so nobody notices who's really picking our pockets. And it's the corporate CEOs and the bizillionaires. The government's working great for them. We have a chance to offer an alternative vision here. To offer big structural change, the kind of change that means we can have a country that doesn't just work for those at the top. A country that works for everybody." (SOUNDBITE) (English) WARREN SUPPORTER, NOAH BUNTING, SAYING: "She is a big progressive and I really love her message and I think it's really what the country needs right now with all of this toxicity." (SOUNDBITE) (English) WARREN SUPPORTER, SARAH MCRITCHIE, SAYING: "I know that all of the candidates are very similar in their platforms. I'm just looking for anything that can specifically differentiate between those things." (SOUNDBITE) (English) WARREN SUPPORTER, JULIAN MACK, SAYING: "Elizabeth Warren absolutely has the best policy of all the candidates. I think the one question that looms in a lot of Rust Belt peoples' minds is 'Does she have the charisma and all of that? Or the swagger, if you will, to be able to - and we shouldn't evaluate elections like that, but to be able to go tit for tat with somebody like Trump. And today, I was able to see her personality up close. I was able to get a much better temperature on the type of vibe and the type of person that she is in real life. And I absolutely - I mean, she reminds me of a cool teacher that I had in school, that I wanted to be like. And I think it's because that's who she actually is. She's not faking, this isn't an ego persona. She's the real deal and she has the policy and she does have the personality to win." WARREN GATHERING SUPPORTERS AROUND HER
- Embargoed: 13th August 2019 03:48
- Keywords: Elizabeth Warren candidates Bernie Sanders Donald Trump debate labor and environmental standards global trade agreements
- Location: TOLEDO, OHIO, UNITED STATES
- City: TOLEDO, OHIO, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA001APU1QVB
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren told a town hall in Ohio on Monday (July 29) that if elected to the White House, she would use the leverage of the United States to raise labor and environmental standards via global trade agreements.
"Before we start negotiating with anyone, we say: 'You've got to raise your standards, you've got to raise your labor standards, you've got to raise your environmental standards,'" Warren told a cheering crowd in Toledo.
"We can't use trade as a way to drive down standards across the world, we need to use the leverage of American markets to drive up standards around the world," she said.
Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, was campaigning in Ohio ahead of a second round of back-to-back Democratic presidential debates this week. She is on stage on Tuesday.
Warren, 70, has offered the most voluminous policy proposals in the crowded field of Democrats hoping to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election. Earlier on Monday, she outlined proposals that would govern her policy on international trade, including requiring trade negotiators to disclose drafts of new trade agreements to the public.
Her trade proposals also included a "border carbon adjustment" tax that would be levied against imported goods that require "carbon-intensive" manufacturing processes, she wrote on the online publishing platform Medium.
Trump made tearing up the nation's trade deals a central part of his 2016 presidential campaign promises. In office, he renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico and has sought new trade deals with Asian and European nations.
Trump's policies on trade are often at odds with his Republican Party, which traditionally has embraced multi-nation trade deals and advocated for extensive free trade.
Instead, his protectionist-leaning trade policies have been more aligned with the historic positions of liberal Democrats.
That reversal has left many Democrats scrambling to find a way to counter Trump, with those like Warren and presidential rival U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders opting to attack the way he has implemented his trade policies, but not the primary goals.
Warren's new trade positions go a step farther, echoing some of the president's criticism that previous trade deals have been unfair to American workers, while calling for more liberal policies to be infused in trade deals.
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