Biden admits Trump's U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal 'better than NAFTA'

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden acknowledges that President Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement is “better than” the previous NAFTA deal that the Obama administration unsuccessfully tried to renegotiate.

President Obama and Biden, his vice president, each vowed during their eight years in the White House to renegotiate the deal. 

On Thursday, CNN news reader Jack Tapper said to Biden when debating the Trump deal: “He renegotiated NAFTA and you didn’t is the point.” 

Biden replied: “It is better than NAFTA. But look at what the overall trade policy has been, even with NAFTA? We now have this gigantic deficit in trade with Mexico – not because NAFTA wasn’t made better, because overall trade policy and how he deals with it made everything worse.”

As a senator, Biden in 1993 helped pass the Clinton-era measure, according to The Washington Times. 

NAFTA, officially the North American Free Trade Agreement, was adopted to promote trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. However, the deal – which Trump called “perhaps the worst trade deal ever" – resulted in a trade disadvantage for the United States.