We’re building on hard lessons learned. Some of us previously argued for free trade agreements because we believed Americans would broadly share in the economic gains and that those deals would shape the global economy in ways that we wanted. We had good reasons to think those things, but we didn’t do enough to understand who would be negatively affected and what would be needed to adequately offset their pain or to enforce agreements that were already on the books and help more workers and small businesses fully benefit from them. Our approach now will be different. We will fight for every American job and for the rights, protections and interests of all American workers. We will use every tool to stop countries from stealing our intellectual property or manipulating their currencies to get an unfair advantage. We will fight corruption which stacks the deck against us and our trade policies will need to answer very clearly how they will grow the American middle class, create new and better jobs and benefit all Americans, not only those for whom the economy is already working. //

If Blinkin’s comments are a public recognition of this reality, and the need to treat China as a force of evil in the world that it truly is, then the Biden Administration will have gone a long way in gaining some level of respect from me on foreign policy. I will disagree with pretty much everything else they do, but I can hold my nose for much of it without too much complaint if they get things right on countering China.