Donald Trump has spent the past two weeks criticizing his Democratic opponent for privately championing “open borders,” but in a newly resurfaced op-ed from 2013 the Republican presidential nominee said Americans should “leave borders behind and go for global unity.”
The op-ed, published by CNN two years before Trump launched his presidential bid, was unearthed by Business Insider on Wednesday, just hours after the billionaire’s campaign released a new ad hitting Clinton for supporting multinational trade deals and the globalization of the U.S. economy.
While explaining how Europe was “a terrific place for investment,” Trump wrote at the time that the world was closer than ever to having an “economic community in the best sense of the term” where “cultures and economics are intertwined” and individual countries “work with each other for the benefit of all.”
“Never before has the phrase ‘we’re all in this together’ had more resonance or relevance,” Trump wrote, noting his concern that “the negligence of a few will adversely affect the majority.”
“I’ve long been a believer in the ‘look at the solution, not the problem’ theory. In this case, the solution is clear,” he explained. “We will have to leave borders behind and go for global unity when it comes to financial stability.”
Trump later concluded: “The future of Europe, as well as the United States, depends on a cohesive global economy.”
Trump’s message in the op-ed couldn’t differ more from the positions he’s taken on trade, immigration and globalization since the beginning of his campaign. The GOP nominee has blasted his opponent and other Republicans for supporting trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, pushed for more restrictive immigration policies and claimed globalization “has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy” while leaving American workers “with nothing but poverty and heartache.”
Trump told his supporters last week that leaked excerpts from a paid speech Clinton once delivered showed that he had been “proved right” about her desire to have open borders and free trade “with everybody.”
“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere,” Clinton had told a group of Brazilian bankers in 2013, according to an email obtained by WikiLeaks.
The Trump campaign did not return the Washington Examiner’s request for comment about the similar language used by Trump in his own op-ed that same year.
