“I still believe in the goal of a strong and fair trade agreement in the Pacific as part of a broader strategy both at home and overseas, just as I did when I was secretary of state”, Clinton said in an October. 7 statement. I still believe that’s the high bar we have to meet. “It’s safe to say that the TPP won’t be ideal – no deal negotiated among a dozen countries ever will be – but its higher standards, if implemented and enforced, should benefit American businesses and workers”, Ms. Clinton wrote in her post-State Department memoir, “Hard Choices”.
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If ratified by all parties, the TPP – which stretches from Chile and Canada to Japan and Singapore – would be the largest pact governing global commerce in more than two decades, encompassing 40 per cent of the world’s economic output. (Fortunately for Clinton, she wasn’t caught until after the Ohio primary, which she won.) President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put approximately zero seconds of effort into “renegotiating” NAFTA. Clinton’s lead position among Democratic voters is diminishing in the wake of a controversy that she used a private e-mail server during her tenure as Secretary of State.
As a result of what she called Republican obstruction to needed investment in infrastructure, education and innovation, “America is less competitive than we should be”, she said in a later statement confirming her opposition. It was Clinton’s Senate vote in favor of the Iraq war that helped Obama defeat her for the Democratic nomination in 2008.
“What I know about it, as of today, I am not in favour of what I have learned about it”, the Democratic presidential candidate told the PBS news channel.
In the first major economic speech of her presidential campaign, last July in New York City, Clinton expressed outrage at accounts of money laundering and currency manipulation involving several major financial firms. The 2008 loss was devastating for Clinton, a slow motion train wreck she appeared powerless to stop.
A potential exception is Vice President Joe Biden, who has yet to say whether he will join the race.
RCEP, which comprises the 10-nation ASEAN club plus six others – China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand – is a Beijing-backed trade framework that has gained prominence as an alternative to US plans.
The reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, which was repealed during the administration of Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, has been a key issue for progressives.
So does Clinton’s opposition doom the TPP’s chance for passage in Congress, where at least a few Democratic support will be necessary to get it through the House?
The White House said it received a heads-up from Clinton’s campaign on her TPP position as it did with Keystone.
Earnest noted the “intense opposition” from Democrats in the summer, when the administration pushed for legislation giving the president “fast-track” trade promotion powers.
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The 12-nation free trade pact is “the most important thing” for the Obama administration’s strategic foreign policy rebalancing toward Asia, Flournoy said Wednesday at the Council on Foreign Relations.
