Hillary Is Lying About Her Position On Free Trade

                                                          by Paul Baumgartner October 24, 2016

Hillary is a solid proponent of Free Trade, and this would make employment even more scant for America’s minorities.  November 5, 2012, Hillary Clinton said, "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. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment [26]."  In her second memoir, Hard Choices, released in 2014, Clinton lauded the deal, saying it "would link markets throughout Asia and the Americas, lowering trade barriers while raising standards on labor, the environment, and intellectual property." She even said it was "important for American workers, who would benefit from competing on a more level playing field [27]."   This is in accord with her general history of supporting Free Trade Agreements.  She was in support of NAFTA when Bill Clinton signed it.  As first lady, in 1996, Clinton trumpeted NAFTA as "proving its worth."  Two years later, she went to Davos, Switzerland, where she spoke at the World Economic Forum and thanked businesses for lobbying for the agreement. She also criticized them for not making a stronger push to give her husband fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals and limit congressional power to alter those deals [28].
 
However, at times, Hillary Clinton’s support for Free Trade wavers. As Clinton campaigned for a U.S. Senate seat in New York, where upstate manufacturing jobs had been lost, she backed away from strong support for NAFTA. She called it "flawed," adding that it needed to be fixed and noting, "[W]e didn't get everything we should have got out of it [29]."
 
Then, once she was a Senator, she voted in favor of free trade agreements with Singapore, Chile, Australia, Morocco and Oman. She also voiced support for deals with Jordan and Peru. But she also voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA [30].
 
When running for president in 2007 and 2008, she spoke strongly against potential agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Her positions on Colombia and South Korea changed, however, when she became secretary of state under President Obama, who ironically ran to Clinton's left in 2008 on trade [31].
 
Then, as I mentioned four paragraphs ago, Hillary was solidly in favor of Free Trade and called it the “Gold Standard.”  Yet, she reneged on this stance once again, once she was campaigning again.  "As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it," she said in an Oct. 8 interview with PBS Newshour’s Judy Woodruff, adding, "I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set [32]."
 
Do you notice the pattern?  When she is campaigning, she is against Free Trade, otherwise she is all for it and a major proponent of it.  What should we expect if she is elected to office?  Terry McAuliffe signaled in an interview with Politico that Clinton would reverse course on TPP after the campaign.  “Once the election’s over, and we sit down on trade, people understand a couple things we want to fix on it but going forward we got to build a global economy,” he said. “Yes,” he added when pressed if she would ultimately support it. “Listen, she was in support of it. There were specific things in it she wants fixed [33].”  You can fully expect that Hillary Clinton will push for the passing of TPP if she is elected President of the United States.

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Footnotes

26.  Lauren Carol, Politifact, “Hillary Clinton flip-flops on Trans-Pacific Partnership,” October 8, 2015, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/08/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-now-opposes-trans-pacific-partners/

27.  Domenico Montanaro, NPR, “A Timeline Of Hillary Clinton's Evolution On Trade,” April 21,2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/21/401123124/a-timeline-of-hillary-clintons-evolution-on-trade

28.  Domenico Montanaro, NPR, “A Timeline Of Hillary Clinton's Evolution On Trade,” April 21, 2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/21/401123124/a-timeline-of-hillary-clintons-evolution-on-trade

29.  Domenico Montanaro, NPR, “A Timeline Of Hillary Clinton's Evolution On Trade,” April 21, 2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/21/401123124/a-timeline-of-hillary-clintons-evolution-on-trade

30.  Domenico Montanaro, NPR, “A Timeline Of Hillary Clinton's Evolution On Trade,” April 21, 2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/21/401123124/a-timeline-of-hillary-clintons-evolution-on-trade

31.  Domenico Montanaro, NPR, “A Timeline Of Hillary Clinton's Evolution On Trade,” April 21, 2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/21/401123124/a-timeline-of-hillary-clintons-evolution-on-trade

32.  Lauren Carol, Politifact, “Hillary Clinton flip-flops on Trans-Pacific Partnership,” October 8, 2015, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/08/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-now-opposes-trans-pacific-partners/

33.  Zeke Miller, Time, “Hillary Clinton Haunted by Past Support for Trade Deals,” July 27, 2016, http://time.com/4426483/dnc-hillary-clinton-trans-pacific-partnership/