Democrats and Republicans Were For Tariffs Before They Were Against Them. Or Vice Versa.
In 1993, Democrats voted against NAFTA by 156-102 and against it in the Senate by a narrower 28-27. Now, Democrats are mourning the death of what they claim is the last vestige of NAFTA.
NAFTA had been the work of a Republican president, but few Republicans want to claim it or the mantle of free trade.
NAFTA cost Republicans the White House, but Bill Clinton’s embrace of it cost Democrats the South. Clinton had manipulated and misled working class Democrats into believing that he would either reject or fundamentally transform NAFTA and lost the white working class vote.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, then a mere member of Congress, had originally voted against NAFTA.
When President Trump proposed replacing NAFTA with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement , Schumer praised the move but still like then Sen. Kamala Harris, voted against it because it didn’t do enough for global warming.
https://www.danielgreenfield.org/2025/04/democrats-and-republicans-were-for.html
