It seems no one in the press believes Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s apparent flip-flop on the White House’s trade deal with Pacific Rim countries comes from a place of conviction.
Instead, pundits and reporters from both sides see the former secretary of state’s sudden opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a political move meant to secure her standing in the Democratic presidential primary against an insurgent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the possibility of Vice President Joe Biden entering the race.
“Hillary Clinton 2016: Just Give Me the Nomination and We Can Work Out the Policy Details Later,” joked National Review’s Jim Geraghty.
Politico’s Danny Vinik added, “This is such a nakedly political move from Hillary. The TPP deal is actually far better than liberals expected. Yet now she opposes it?”
“Short-term political reward vs. the risk of seeming unprincipled and inauthentic,” National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar mused.
Politico’s Ben White asked, “How can [Hillary Clinton] already be against TPP when the text is not yet even available?”
Clinton’s about-face on the White House-backed trade deal came Wednesday during an interview in Iowa with PBS’s Judy Woodruff.
“As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it,” the Democratic presidential candidate said. “I have said from the very beginning that we had to have a trade agreement that would create good American jobs, raise wages and advance our national security and I still believe that is the high bar we have to meet.”
“I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set,” she added.
Sanders, a socialist, has opposed the deal from beginning, siding with a sizeable faction within the Democratic Party that believes the deal would disproportionately hurt labor unions. This means that were Biden to enter the race, as persistent rumors insist he will, he’d be the only major Democratic contender who supports the deal.
And as Sanders continues to close the polling gap between himself and Clinton, some in media, including NBC News’ Mark Murray, have suggested that her sudden change of heart has more to do with “protecting her left flank” than it has to do with principle.
MSNBC’s Chuck Todd agreed, suggesting that Clinton “[coming] out against TPP has all the trappings of Clinton trying to placate labor and keep them from endorsing Sanders.”
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza added, “The damage done by flip-flopping on TPP was less worrisome than the reverberations on the left – and among unions especially – if she supported the trade deal.”
“That’s a concession, whether the Clinton folks admit it or not, that they are more than a little concerned about Sanders. Fact,” he added.
The belief that Clinton’s newfound opposition to the deal is little more than a shrewd political move appears to be widespread in American newsrooms.
“Hillary Clinton flip-flops on trade to be more in line with her donors,” the Washington Free Beacon’s Andrew Stiles said on social media, including in his note a photo of 2016 GOP front-runner and longtime Clinton supporter Donald Trump.
CNN’s Teddy Davis said, “Hillary keeps working to protect Left flank [versus] Bernie. This time opposing TPP deal she once called ‘the gold standard.'”
“Her credibility already an issue, [Hillary Clinton] was for the trade deal before she was against it,” National Journal’s Ron Fournier noted.
Hints of Clinton’s reversal on the deal started to show this summer when she claimed in an interview that she never actually had anything to do with the agreement.
“I did not work on TPP,” Clinton said in July. “I advocated for a multi-national trade agreement that would ‘be the gold standard.’ But that was the responsibility of the United States Trade Representative.”
But these and similar claims come after years of her backing the White House’s trade deal.
“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,” Clinton said in 2012. “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.”
Later, in her book Hard Choices, she again praised the merits of the deal.
Her previous support for the deal did not go unmentioned Wednesday afternoon as newsrooms, including Vox, CNN, the Free Beacon and Salon, were careful to note that Clinton’s announced opposition to the deal is indeed a flip-flop.
Another potential problem for Clinton, aside from appearing to act only from a place of politics, is the fact that foreign policy analysts have cited the so-called Asia pivot, with the trade deal at its center, as “her best legacy at the State Department,” the Post’s David Nakamura noted.
Pushed Wednesday to clarify her opposition to the deal, Clinton threw in a somewhat strange attack on Republicans, claiming that they’ve somehow “weakened U.S. competitiveness” between now and her past support for the deal.
The press’ skeptical response this week to Clinton’s sudden reversal on TPP closely mirrors its reaction in September when she announced unexpectedly that she would also oppose the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline.
