What’s In Biden’s Big Economic Plan? Where He May Find Conservative Support (And Where He Definitely Won’t)

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden unveiled a major plank of his economic agenda Thursday, detailing his plan to revive American manufacturing in a speech near his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The “Buy American” proposal calls for $400 billion of federal spending over four years on reshoring manufacturing and services back to the United States, and an additional $300 billion over four years on research and development involving artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

Biden’s “Buy American” plan may find sympathy among conservatives as it calls for a “pro-American worker tax and trade strategy” that involves rethinking trade practices and making it more difficult for companies to circumvent loopholes.

One of President Donald Trump’s most important campaign promises was to renegotiate decades of bad trade deals that enriched multinational corporations at the expense of the American working class. During his first term, Trump shredded the Trans-Pacific Partnership, replaced NAFTA with the USMCA and signed a Phase One trade deal with China.