The history of Hillary Clinton’s run for the White House in 2016 is becoming one of flip-flops, obfuscations, Orwellian Newspeak, and trying to please everyone at all times.
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“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a continuation of disastrous trade policies which have cost this country millions of decent-paying jobs and have led to a race to the bottom”, Sanders said.
Clinton told PBS’s NewsHour that she would not support the 12-nation TPP based on her current understanding of the 30-chapter text of the deal, which US officials spent years negotiating.
Speaking in Iowa Wednesday, the Democratic presidential hopeful said Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis was “treated as she should have been treated”.
In the interview, Clinton said the agreement does not meet her standard for creating jobs, raising wages and protecting national security.
Clinton’s opposition puts her on the side of her Democratic presidential challenger, Bernie Sanders, who is firmly against the deal and calls it “disastrous” for consumers and USA job creation.
Clinton had said at an Iowa campaign stop on Tuesday that she would lay out her plan to rein in Wall Street abuses within the next week.
He has been a sharp critic of what he calls Obama’s “disastrous” Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious trade pact involving the United States and 11 other nations, and vows to “do all that I can” to thwart the agreement in the Senate.
Clinton first expressed skepticism toward the deal on the campaign trail this summer – pointing to Warren’s criticism as well as the lack of language within the agreement hammering countries like Japan (and China, were it ever to join) for currency manipulation.
O’Malley criticized Clinton for her foot-dragging shortly after the news broke while speaking with reporters at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute conference.
As Clinton looks for ways to distinguish her ideas from those of her former boss, the relationship between the man in the White House and the woman who hopes to replace him has grown increasingly complicated.
TPP, as it is known, would potentially create a free trade area covering 40 per cent of the world’s total trade.
It’s also a departure from the Clinton legacy: It was President Bill Clinton who, two decades ago, signed the first mega-regional pact: the North American Free Trade Agreement. “Now, looking back on it, it doesn’t have the results we thought it would have, in terms of access to the markets, more exports, etc”.
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Mr Biden’s campaign would be likely to rely heavily on working-class, union support – a segment of the Democratic electorate that is firmly opposed to new trade deals. Sanders and O’Malley were highlighting Clinton’s refusal to take a position as evidence that they better suited the party’s base. TPA restricts Congress members to a yes or no vote on trade deals, preventing them from altering any details.
