Luke Skywalker
Super Moderator
{vb:raw ozzmodz_postquote}:
Hillary Clinton speaks during a community forum on Oct. 6, 2015, in Davenport, Iowa.(Photo: Charlie Neibergall, AP)
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Wednesday she opposes a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>trade agreement<span style="color: Red;">*</span>between the United States and 11 other<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Pacific Rim countries, putting her in sharp opposition with President Obama.
"I am not in favor of what I have learned about it," Clinton said in an interview on PBS's News Hour.
"I have said from the very beginning that we have to have a trade agreement that would create good American jobs, raise wages and advance our national security, and I still believe that is the high bar we have to meet," she said. Clinton added that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>she doesn't believe the agreement "is going to meet the high bar I have set."
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Obama hopes to make one of the defining legacies of his presidency, is sharply opposed by labor unions.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>White House officials, speaking on condition they not be named, said Clinton's aides alerted them<span style="color: Red;">*</span>about her opposition before she went public.
Clinton's move is a sharp<span style="color: Red;">*</span>reversal from her support for the deal as Obama's first secretary of State and is<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the latest step<span style="color: Red;">*</span>she has taken toward progressives in her party. Her remarks<span style="color: Red;">*</span>come<span style="color: Red;">*</span>as Vice President Biden weighs entering the contest.
Biden's office quickly issued a one-sentence statement as news of Clinton's opposition spread through Washington. "The Vice President supports the TPP agreement and will help pass it on the Hill," it read.
In announcing the deal this week, Obama said the agreement will eliminate or reduce foreign tariffs on each nation's products, easing trade in a zone that stretches from Canada to Chile to Australia and Japan.
USA TODAY
USA, allies strike Pacific Rim trade deal
For the United States, it means the elimination of what amounts to foreign taxes on some<span style="color: Red;">*</span>18,000 U.S. products.
"So we are knocking down barriers that are currently preventing American businesses from selling in these countries and are preventing American workers from benefitting from those sales to the fastest-growing, most dynamic region in the world." Obama said on Tuesday.
Clinton had<span style="color: Red;">*</span>backed the deal, known as TPP, when she served in the Obama administration.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field," Clinton said during a visit to Australia in 2012.
Her critics immediately seized on the move as<span style="color: Red;">*</span>politically calculated.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement that "Clinton's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>painful waffling on TPP has been a case study in political expediency and is precisely why an overwhelming majority of Americans don’t trust her.
Jeff Bechdel, a spokesman for American Rising PAC, a group opposed to Clinton's candidacy, said her<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"ability to shift positions based on political survival is both astonishing and deeply disturbing." He said the group had<span style="color: Red;">*</span>tallied 45 instances of Clinton pushing the trade deal.
Progressive hailed her decision<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and urged Democrats on Capitol Hill to join her in bucking the president.
“If Hillary Clinton,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>who worked on the Trans-Pacific Partnership as secretary of State,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>can change her mind about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, so can the small number of Democrats in Congress who have previously voiced their support," said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Murshed Zaheed, deputy political director of CREDO, one of the groups working to kill the pact.
Contributing: David Jackson and Heidi<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Przybyla
Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed