Trump campaign ramps up attacks over Biden’s China trade record

President Trump’s presidential reelection campaign is ramping up attacks over Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s record on trade with China. 

The Trump campaign is using clips of Biden’s own comments on China in a new 30-second ad shared with The Hill on Wednesday to attack Biden’s record.

The digital ad is being launched as part of a broader 7-figure ad buy that will target several key battleground states. The ad buy will be launched in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and the ad will be seen across social media platforms, news publishers and connected TVs, according to the Trump campaign. 

The ad uses select comments from Biden about China as a graphic shows a rising line of “jobs lost.” The ad warns that “if Biden wins, China wins.” 

Along with the new ad, a spokesperson said the Trump campaign will “be pushing Biden on his China trade record aggressively in the coming weeks.” 

“While Joe Biden spent his entire career appeasing Beijing and expanding American reliance on the communist nation, President Trump is the first President to finally stand up to China and hold them accountable for their nefarious actions,” Trump campaign spokesperson Ken Farnaso said in a statement. 

Both presidential candidates have sought to attack the other over their relationship and dealings with China. Trump has long sought to cast Biden as weak on China, with ads slamming the former vice president as “Beijing Biden” for his work on past trade deals. Trump and his allies have tried to cast the president as stronger on China, highlighting his decision to impose tariffs on Beijing during trade negotiations. 

The Biden campaign has hit back on Trump’s attacks and has also sought to use Trump’s dealings with China to denigrate the Republican incumbent. 

Biden told Reuters in a statement last month Trump’s trade deal with China was “failing.”

“Trump’s ‘phase one’ trade deal with China is failing — badly,” Biden told the newswire. 

The Democrat reportedly called the trade deal “unenforceable,” and “full of vague, weak, and recycled commitments from Beijing.”

Biden’s campaign has criticized the president for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which started in Wuhan, China. Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said Trump “echoed Chinese Communist Party propaganda” about the virus earlier this year “and horrifically mismanaged the worst public health crisis in over 100 years,” after the Trump campaign aired a different ad criticizing Biden’s record on China in May. 

Biden has also proposed policies aimed at cracking down on China’s competitive economic advantages and has said he would take measures to confront Beijing’s human rights abuses with respect to Hong Kong and the reeducation camps in China’s Xinjiang region. 

A spokesperson for Biden’s campaign was not immediately available for comment Wednesday. 

Less than 50 days away from the election, Biden is leading Trump in recent national polls and polls of several key battleground states, including some of the states the Trump campaign is targeting with the new ad buy. 

Biden is leading Trump in Wisconsin, a key swing state Trump narrowly carried in 2016, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Wednesday. Biden is also up 9 points ahead of Trump in the critical state of Pennsylvania, according to an NBC News-Marist poll released last week.