What Went Down At The January Democratic Debate

Buttigieg uses his answer on the USMCA to talk about how his part of the country, the industrial Midwest, felt left behind by free-trade deals. Yesterday, I visited a Buttigieg field office in Newton, Iowa, which was hit hard by the closure of a big Maytag factory in 2007. A couple dozen volunteers squeezed into the tiny office for a weekly meeting. According to Buttigieg’s staff there (who, of course, are probably biased), it was the most mobilized they have ever seen that area for a candidate.

Sanders is being civil about it, but he’s taking pains in this debate to emphasize his differences with Biden — first on foreign policy, now on trade.

For a good example of how climate and trade aren’t disconnected issues, consider the way we’ve effective exported our pollution. Research suggests that as much as a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions have been exported from Western countries to developing ones.