'Who said Trump's idea's a good one?': Biden pushes back on president's China policy and tariffs

Yahoo News Video
Updated

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden pushed back on Tuesday against the suggestion that some believe President Trump's stance on China is a good way to counter China's influence. "We're going after China in the wrong way," Biden said. The former VP’s response is part of an interview that will air Thursday at the combined convention of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. The convention is being held online this year due to the coronavirus.

Video Transcript

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: President Trump is not the first president to say China is ripping off the United States. President Obama made similar complaints. Some have said Trump's stance is a good one to counter China's influence. Would you keep the tariffs?

JOE BIDEN: No. Hey, look, who said Trump's idea is a good one? Who said Trump's idea is a good one?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: Some--

JOE BIDEN: Some. Two or three people. Manufacturing has gone in recession. Agriculture lost billions of dollars that taxpayers had to pay.

We're going after China in the wrong way. China is stealing intellectual property. China is conditioning being able to do business in China based on whether or not you have 51% Chinese ownership. That's got to end.

I've spent a fair amount of time when I was vice president with President Xi, because the president wanted me to get to know him. He's no democrat with a small D at all. But here's the deal. I made it real clear--

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: So if he scraps those tariffs, what do you want in return? Or are you just going to scrap them without any concessions?

JOE BIDEN: No, no, no. Here's the deal. The question is, what is the appropriate behavior that they have to engage in in international trade with us? And they have to play by the international rules.

And what we have done is we have disarmed ourselves. We make up 25% of the world's economy. But we poked our finger in the eye of all of our allies out there.

The way Trump-- the way China will respond is when we gather the rest of the world that in fact [INAUDIBLE] in open trade, and making sure that we're in a position that the world-- that we deal with WHO the right way. In fact, that's when things began to change. That's when China-- that's when China's behavior is going to change.