I mean without Hillary Clinton putting together this, the coalition to impose sanctions on Iran, you wouldn’t have an Iran deal.
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Her once-commanding lead in polls of Democratic voters has diminished amid a lingering controversy about her use of a private e-mail server when she was secretary of state, giving rise to speculation that Vice President Joe Biden could enter the race. And even as her campaign attempts to distance itself from the ongoing scandal involving her offsite email server, on October 7 a new topic she was championing before today is about to get highly scrutinized by both the media, and the American people.
“I appreciate the hard work that President Obama and his team put into this process and recognize the strides they made”, Clinton said in a statement. Is anybody going to believe that she will actually oppose the treaty as president?
Hillary Clinton came out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal Wednesday, explaining that it will not meet her “high bar” for creating jobs, boosting wages, and upholding national security.
In assessing the degree of Clinton’s flip-flop on the issue, we are faced with an opaque trade agreement that the White House has not been forthcoming about, against the word of a highly secretive former secretary of State with no obvious paper trail on the issue beyond a few platitudes in speeches.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other corporate lobbying groups, meanwhile, strongly support TPP, saying it will boost USA exports.
“[The deal] includes the strongest commitments on labour and the environment of any trade agreement in history”, he said after the agreement was reached. Clinton said this week she favors executive action on gun control, while Obama has said Congress needs to act.
She pointed to particular concerns about the lack of currency manipulation provisions as well as language benefiting pharmaceuticals, but Clinton also said trade agreements more generally don’t always deliver as advertised.
“I am delighted that Secretary Clinton is on board”, Sanders said during an appearance at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
Back in June, CNN’s Jake Tapper released a list of 45 times Hillary “approvingly invoked” TPP, most recently, on January 31, 2013 where she cited using “trade negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership to find common ground with a former adversary in Vietnam” as an example of “creative diplomacy”.
There is a long tradition of Democratic presidential candidates posturing against free trade on the stump only to reverse themselves in office.
The trade agreement, which was finalized on Monday, would create one of the largest free trade areas in the world, including twelve countries circling the Pacific Ocean.
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Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist who advised Bill Clinton’s second presidential campaign, said Clinton’s comments will make it harder to attack her from the left and may endear her to labor unions. “I believe we need to stop stumbling backwards into bad trade deals”.
