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Virginia Lawmakers Split on New Trade Deals

There are isolationist sentiments sweeping the nation right now, and Virginia lawmakers are feeling the pressure to oppose new trade deals.

There isn’t much overlap between Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, but the two are singing similar tunes when it comes to trade policy. Both are railing against the president’s Trans Pacific Partnership while on the stump.

Virginia Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly says there is an anti-trade sentiment in the United States these days. “It’s sort of red meat for partisan audiences, and for the people who feel they’re aggrieved economically. And it’s an easy whipping boy for all that you object to in economic disadvantage. So, that’s what’s happened,” says Connolly, “I think it gets magnified in the heat of these campaigns and clearly Trump has made it a toxic object in this primary season. But I think it masks the underline view of most of the public, that well if you get it right trade can be beneficial.”

  Virginia Republican Congressman Dave Brat opposes the president’s trade deal. As for Trump’s message, he says it’s less isolationist than it is an argument for better trade deals. He says, “Trump throws the big punch, right, on trade and then backs off of it and says but I’m still a free trader. And so there is something meaningful in that, right? Duo of statements right there. And the American people, they know that we’re not against trade, but we know that the United States has been the most generous country on the Earth for setting up the whole post-WWII order of things, right?” Brat says the message resonates for a reason, “The middle class is seeing their wages flat for three decades, and they’re saying what’s going on? Right? And we’re paying for the rest of the world and this nice set up that’s made us all rich, but the rest of the world is cheating. And that’s it. That’s the story.”

Virginia Democratic Congressman Bobby Scott says his voters don’t want to see more trade deals at a time when there’s such a large income gap in the United States. He says, “The best trade deal will put slight downward pressure on wages, a bad trade deal would put major downward pressure on wages. But all of them, at a time when wages have been stagnant for so long put downward pressure on wages. We need to be working to increase wages, not depress them.”

Hillary Clinton helped craft the current trade deal when she was Secretary of State, but she now opposes it. Virginia Democratic Congressman Don Beyer says it looks like the next president will oppose free trade. He says, “Hillary unfortunately has come out against TPP, with some pressure from Bernie Sanders on the left, but boy it would be a terrible thing to have a president that was anti-trade.”

Virginia Republican Congressman Scott Rigell supports the trade deals because he says it puts other nations under similar regulations as those that U-S businesses are under. Rigell says, “I’m convinced it strengthens America. We cannot isolate ourselves and that is not the solution. Nor is the solution to have an emotional response to all of this and to vilify a particular country.”

Congressman Connolly is hoping Congress takes up the trade deal after November’s elections and not in the midst of a campaign.  He says, “I think the dust should settle, passions should cool, campaigns should be over, and let us look at that in the cold light of day in the lame duck session.”