The White House said Hillary Clinton’s comments on trade over the weekend show that her views overlap significantly with President Obama’s.
“I think what Secretary Clinton articulated over the weekend [is a view] that she is neither reflexively in favor of trade agreements or against them,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday. Earnest also noted that she would base her support for trade deals on “whether or not they are in the best interest of national security and American workers.”
Clinton’s comments were criticized by some who said they showed Clinton is trying to duck the debate, which has split Democrats and led to a failed vote in the House last week. But Earnest said Obama too is trying to judge agreements based on what they would do for American workers.
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“It’s quite familiar because it’s the same criteria that the president uses,” he said. “The overlap in their views is not surprising” since Clinton served as Obama’s secretary of state, he said.
Earnest said the White House is confident that there is “strong bipartisan support” for passing trade promotion authority, which would give Obama the ability to negotiate trade deals without changes from Congress, along with assistance for displaced global workers.
“We just have to untangle the legislative snafu in the House,” he said.
The House may try again as early as Tuesday to pass part of the trade package that failed last week, dealing with trade adjustment assistance. Earnest said White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough talked with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday on the bill, which she opposed last week.
Clinton said over the weekend that any trade deal should protect U.S. jobs, increase American workers’ wages and protect national security.
But she also didn’t take a position on the trade promotion authority bill, which the president has said is critical to whether he can negotiate the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership pact.
She also said that “no president would be a tougher negotiator on behalf of American workers, either with our trade partners or Republicans on Capitol hill, than I would be.”
She also suggested that Obama should work with Democrats to rework either the trade adjustment assistance bill and or the “Fast Track” trade bill in order to get both over the finish line.
“In order to get a deal that meets these high standards, the president should listen to and work with his allies in Congress, starting with Nancy Pelosi, who have expressed their concerns about the impact that a weak agreement would have on our workers, to make sure we get the best, strongest deal possible,” she said. “And if we don’t get it, there should be no deal.”
