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DURYEA — Former Vice President Joe Biden Monday blasted Vice President Mike Pence for “fueling President Donald Trump’s reckless trade wars and slighting American workers.”
Biden, who will follow Pence to Northeastern Pennsylvania Tuesday and Wednesday, said Trump has talked tough on trade, but has nothing to show for it, other than pain for America’s families.
“Mike Pence has been his complicit sidekick, propping up Trump’s trade wars and slighting hard-working Americans in Luzerne County and across the country,” Biden said. “I know Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvanians will not be fooled by Pence’s blind promotion of Trump’s irresponsible trade wars. They understand that it is their workers, farmers, and manufacturers who are paying the price and feeling the pain.”
Biden went on to say that America cannot compete or lead in a global economy with an “erratic President in the Oval Office concerned more with looking tough rather than getting anything done for American workers and a complicit Vice President who refuses to stand up for the hard working people that built this country.”
Biden said the current new NAFTA deal doesn’t do enough to ensure protections for the rights of workers are enforced, and it includes a give-away for Big Pharma rather than prioritizing reducing prescription drug costs for American families.
“Just another example of whose interests Donald Trump is really looking out for,” Biden said. “As president, I’ll bring the voices of labor unions, environmental advocates, and farmers to the table for labor negotiations. I’ll make sure that before we make any deals we first invest in our workers and our communities to make sure they are positioned to benefit from trade. I’ll bring together our allies to unite the economic strength of our fellow democracies to take on China’s abusive trade practices. We can be both tough and smart. I will return strong, stable leadership to the Office of the President to safeguard America’s position on the world stage.”
Biden’s campaign said the middle class isn’t a number — it’s a set of values, and Donald Trump has attacked those values by cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations instead of middle class families, stripping the rights of unions to collectively bargain, and hurting hard-working Americans.
His statement said, “As president, Biden will reward work over wealth and builds an inclusive middle class where everybody is in on the deal — regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. Throughout the week, the campaign will underscore the contrast between Biden’s long standing support for the middle class and unions and Trump’s senseless efforts to reward wealth instead of work.”