Biden lays out economic plan

Speaking at a metalworks firm near his childhood hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, Biden said the Trump's failures had "come with a terrible human cost and a deep economic toll", reports the BBC.

"Time and again, working families are paying the price for this administration's incompetence," the former Vice President said.

Biden struck an optimistic tone as he presented an economic programme, which he said would create at least five million jobs in manufacturing and innovation and would also be the biggest investment in the US economy since World War Two..

A key theme of his "Build Back Better" agenda Biden said, was to "Buy American".

He proposed a $400 billion increase in government spending on US-made products, in addition to spending $300 billion on the research and development of new technologies, including electric vehicles and 5G networks.

"When the federal government spends taxpayers' money, we should use it to buy American products and support American jobs," he was quoted as saying in the BBC report.

Pennsylvania is a battleground state seen as critical to the outcome of the election. Trump won it in 2016 by a thin margin.

The "Buy American" tagline has drawn comparisons to President's Trump's "American First" agenda.

But Biden said Trump had failed to "bring back jobs and manufacturing" and, during the pandemic, had protected wealthy "cronies and pals" instead of working-class families.

"The truth is throughout this crisis, Donald Trump has been almost singularly focused on the stock market, the Dow and NASDAQ. Not you. Not your families."

Responding to the former Vice President's remarks, Trump campaign spokesman, Hogan Gidley said: "Biden's wilful attack on our jobs, our families, and the American way of life will reverse all the gains we've made together and plunge us into economic catastrophe."

Biden, 77, officially secured the Democratic presidential nomination in June.

He had been the effective nominee since left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders withdrew from the race in April.

This is Biden's third bid for the presidency, after failed runs in 1988 and 2008.

Both the Democratic and Republican party conventions are scheduled for August.

At those events, delegates will formally choose each party's nominees for President and Vice President for the November 3 election.