Potential Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton dealt a significant blow to US President Barack Obama in his efforts to secure approval from Congress on his signature trade agreement, saying on Wednesday she could not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the 12-nation pact she bolstered as secretary of state and that liberals in the Democratic Party have vehemently opposed.
After months of delicately avoiding expressing an opinion on the controversial trade deal, Clinton said the agreement in its current form did not meet her “high bar” for protecting US workers, the environment and advancing national security.
“I appreciate the hard work that President Obama and his team put into this process and recognize the strides they made,” Clinton wrote in a statement.
She specifically criticized the agreement for lacking sufficient protections against currency manipulation, which she said “kills American jobs,” and provisions that benefit global pharmaceutical companies over patients.
Her opposition to the trade pact comes just before Tuesday’s first Democratic presidential debate and represents the latest and most potentially damaging break with Obama.
In recent weeks, Clinton has taken a series of stands important to the liberal wing of the party, which has been increasingly swept up by the campaign of US presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders. Last week, she proposed doing away with the so-called Cadillac tax on certain healthcare plans, aligning herself with labor unions on undoing a key part of Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Last month, she came out against the Keystone XL pipeline, which the administration has not yet decided on.
However, while Clinton’s opposition to the trade pact could do much to appease Democratic voters and labor unions that have seized on the deal as a symbol for the perils of globalization, her decision to repudiate a major legislative goal of Obama’s — one she initially supported — carries significant political risks.
In the statement, Clinton said she was still studying the details of the pact — the largest regional trade deal in history and aimed at bringing together nations representing two-fifths of the global economy.
“But based on what I know so far, I can’t support this agreement,” she wrote. “The bar here is very high and, based on what I have seen, I don’t believe this agreement has met it.”
As soon as Clinton made her opinion known, her opponents seized on her apparent inconsistency on the issue.
In a 2012 speech in Australia, Clinton said the trade pact, which would bring together the economies of countries from Chile to Canada to Japan, “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.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called Clinton’s position “a case study in political expediency.”
In addition, as US Vice President Joe Biden contemplates his own run for the presidency, Clinton risks alienating Obama’s coalition of African-American supporters, partly drawn to her candidacy because of her loyal service in the Obama administration.
On Wednesday, hours before Clinton made her opinion known in an interview with US public broadcaster PBS, White House press secretary Josh Earnest hinted at displeasure inside the West Wing about Democratic opposition to Obama.
He said he hoped Democrats would “remain open to the strong case we have to make.”
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