Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersNYT editorial board remembers Ginsburg: She 'will forever have two legacies' Two GOP governors urge Republicans to hold off on Supreme Court nominee Sanders knocks McConnell: He's going against Ginsburg's 'dying wishes' MORE is calling on Democrats to "wake up" in the aftermath of British voters' decision to leave the European Union.

"Surprise, surprise," Sanders wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times.

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"Workers in Britain, many of whom have seen a decline in their standard of living while the very rich in their country have become much richer, have turned their backs on the European Union and a globalized economy that is failing them and their children."

"Could this rejection of the current form of the global economy happen in the United States?" Sanders asked. "You bet it could."

Sanders said during his campaign that he saw and heard about job loss, much of which was related to "disastrous trade agreements." Millions of people are living in poverty and struggling with student debt, while others don't have access to health insurance, he wrote.

"Let’s be clear," he said. "The global economy is not working for the majority of people in our country and the world. This is an economic model developed by the economic elite to benefit the economic elite. We need real change."

He said those ideas were central to the people's decision to leave the European Union, and to Trump's message.

The next president needs to support international cooperation and fight for an economy "that protects the interests of working people, not just Wall Street, the drug companies and other powerful special interests," Sanders wrote.

"We need to fundamentally reject our 'free trade' policies and move to fair trade," he wrote.

"Americans should not have to compete against workers in low-wage countries who earn pennies an hour. We must defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We must help poor countries develop sustainable economic models."

But the Vermont senator noted the Brexit decision and the "notion that Donald Trump could benefit from the same forces that gave the Leave proponents a majority in Britain" should "sound an alarm" for the Democratic Party.

"Millions of American voters, like the Leave supporters, are understandably angry and frustrated by the economic forces that are destroying the middle class," he wrote.