Despite having a minor starring role in the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, trade came up just a couple of times during the rematch in St. Louis on Sunday night. Trump again attacked Clinton for her husband’s role in winning approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and he also repeated his assertion that Clinton wants Congress to approve the TPP, even though she has said she opposes it.
In the debate’s closing moments, Trump pivoted from a question about energy to say the United States needs to get tough with China, which he accused of “dumping vast amounts of steel” in the U.S. and effectively “killing our steelworkers and steel companies.” That provided an opening for Clinton to accuse Trump of putting “American steelworkers out of business” by purchasing Chinese steel for some of his construction projects — news that outraged the United Steelworkers union when the story broke last week. She also repeated her promise to hire a special trade prosecutor to go after countries that violate global trade rules.
Trump did not get a chance to answer Clinton’s charge on Chinese steel before the debate ended. He began the evening by again misstating the size of the trade deficit, which he put at $800 billion. It’s actually closer to $500 billion, when you factor in the services trade surplus. However, by itself, the goods trade deficit was $762 billion last year.
