While last week’s Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines focused little on local issues, Washington County had a brief moment in the spotlight during a discussion on trade.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., recalled an October campaign visit to a shuttered ethanol plant in Crawfordsville.

“I will never forget going to Crawfordsville here in Iowa… and I went to this plant and there was one worker left in that plant,” Klobuchar said. “That plant had been shut down because of Donald Trump’s trade policies and because of what he had done to those workers with giving secret waivers to oil companies and ruining the renewable fuel standard.

“That worker brought out a coat rack of uniforms and he said, these are my friends, they don’t work anymore. And their names were embroidered on those uniforms, Derek, Mark, Salvador. And that guy started to cry.”

Klobuchar’s answer was in response to a question posed about the Trump administration’s new trade pact with China and the new trade deal with Mexico and Canada (USMCA).

U.S Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was the only candidate to oppose the agreements.

“The answer is we could do much better than a Trump-led trade deal,” Sanders said. “This deal – and I think the proponents of it acknowledge – will result in the continuation of the loss of hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs as a result of outsourcing.”

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called the deals a “modest improvement.”

“But we have farmers here in Iowa who are hurting,” Warren said. “And they are hurting because of Donald Trump’s initiated trade wars. We have workers who are hurting because the agreements that have already been cut really don’t have enforcement on workers’ rights.”

She went on to say, “It will give some relief to our farmers. It will give some relief to our workers. I believe we accept that relief.  We try to help the people who need help, and we get up the next day and fight for a better trade deal.”

Both Warren and Sanders, along with former Vice President Joe Biden and businessman Tom Steyer, agreed that there needs to be a change in how trade deals are negotiated.

“We need a policy that actually helps our workers, our farmers,” Warren said. “We need them at the table, not just to trade policy written for big, international companies.”

Sanders added, “Sen. Warren is right in saying we need to bring the stakeholders to the table, that – it is the family farmers here in Iowa and in Vermont and around the country. That is the environmental community. That is the workers. Bottom line here is, I am sick and tired of trade agreements negotiated by the CEOs of large corporations behind doors.”

Biden later said, “There will be no trade agreements signed in my administration without environmentalists and labor at the table. And there will be no trade agreement until we invest more in American workers.”

Steyer said that on day one of his administration, he would end Trump’s tariffs and waivers to oil refiners.

“In fact, these trade deals have been exactly what Sens. Sanders and Warren have been saying, which is that they’ve been designed to grow the American GDP for the corporations of America, not for the working people of America, and not to protect the climate,” he said.