Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton finally said something about Obama’s trade deal after it went up in smoke last week as Democrats broke ranks and opposed their party leader’s agenda.
After weeks of total silence on the issue, Hillary told an Iowa campaign rally that any trade deal would have to protect American workers, raise wages and create American jobs, and be in our national security interests. “I’ve been saying that for months,” she said.
“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 [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi, who have expressed their concerns about the impact that a weak agreement would have on our workers,” said Clinton.
Pelosi, D-Calif., led a revolt of Democrats in Congress on Friday who helped sink the president’s expanded powers under the Trans-Pacific Authority bill. The bill was opposed by trade unions.
The President needs “to make sure we get the best, strongest deal possible,” said Clinton. “If we don’t get it, there should be no deal.”
“No president would be a tougher negotiator on behalf of American workers, either with our trading partners or Republicans on Capitol Hill, than I would be,” Clinton said.
Clinton seemed to be speaking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation free-trade deal, and not about the “Fast Track” authority Obama says he needs, which is currently stalled in the House. “Let’s take the lemons and turn it into lemonade,” Clinton said.
Rival presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has loudly called for Clinton to take a stance on the bills. Sanders said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” he “would hope very much that Secretary Clinton will side with every union in this country, virtually every environmental group, many religious groups, and say that this TPP policy is a disaster, that it must be defeated, and that we need to regroup and come up with a trade policy which demands that corporate America start investing in this country.”
“Hillary Clinton’s failure to actually take a position on trade is yet another indication she’s running an overly-cautious campaign that’s terrified of upsetting the far left of her party,” said Jeff Bechdel, spokesman for the GOP group America Rising, in a statement to the Washington Post. “Blandly stating that President Obama should work with Congress and turn lemons into lemonade is frankly embarrassing for someone who advocated for the Trans-Pacific Partnership just a few years ago.”
Clinton’s campaign rally was held at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, her first major public event in Iowa.
