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CNN: Can Hillary Clinton step out of Bill's NAFTA shadow?
Can Hillary Clinton step out of Bill's NAFTA shadow?
1/14/15
Washington (CNN)Two decades later, Hillary Clinton is still haunted by the ghosts of NAFTA.
Labor unions and liberal activists are preparing to highlight free trade — an issue central to Bill and Hillary Clinton's political brand in the early 1990s — if she opts to run for president in 2016.
Driving their anger: The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive new pact that that would usurp the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement's place as the biggest-ever free trade agreement. President Barack Obama's administration has been negotiating the Chile-to-Japan deal for years, and it's increasingly drawing scrutiny from the Democratic base as the talks near completion.
The new deal has reminded labor halls across the country of the old one — and that it was their biggest problem with the Clintons. Compounding the problem is that free trade, particularly NAFTA, is an issue that Clinton has vacillated on since her husband's administration.
As first lady, Clinton backed NAFTA and spoke highly of it at stops for the administration. But once she was elected to the Senate and later ran for president, her support of free trade -- and her husband's landmark agreement -- began to wane. On the campaign trail, Clinton acknowledged that NAFTA has "hurt a lot of American workers" and advocated for broad reform of trade policy. President Barack Obama's campaign even used the flip-flop against Clinton during the 2008 primary.
But after Clinton lost the nomination and agreed to serve as the President's Secretary of State, she began to warm up to free trade, and particularly the TPP.
...As first lady, Clinton backed NAFTA.
"I think that everybody is in favor of free and fair trade," she said during a meeting with union workers in 1996, "and I think that NAFTA is proving its worth." In her 2003 memoir, "Living History," Clinton also writes glowingly about NAFTA, including it among her husband's "legislative victories" and noting it would "expand U.S. exports, create jobs and ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization."
But when she entered the Senate in 2000 and ran for president in 2008, Clinton's tune on free trade began to change. She conducted a study as senator that found the agreement hurt New York workers' ability to sell goods in Canada and spoke out against NAFTA during her 2008 campaign.
"NAFTA and the way it's been implemented has hurt a lot of American workers," Clinton said at a 2007 forum with the AFL-CIO. "Clearly we have to have a broad reform in how we approach trade. NAFTA's a piece of it, but it's not the only piece of it."
Clinton lost her race for president, though, and went on to serve as Barack Obama's secretary of state. In the role, she oversaw the President's much noted pivot to Asia. At the center of that move was the TPP. "One of our most important tools for engaging with Vietnam was a proposed new trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would link markets throughout Asia and the Americas, lowering trade barriers while raising standards on labor, the environment, and intellectual property," Clinton wrote in her 2014 memoir "Hard Choices."
As secretary of state, Clinton also talked up the benefits of the TPP and during a trip to Korea in 2011, she advocated for "as few barriers to trade and investment as possible."
When asked for Clinton's current position on free trade and the TPP, a spokesman pointed CNN to what the former secretary of state wrote in her book.
...Before Clinton went to Michigan last year to endorse candidates, America Rising PAC, an anti-Clinton communication and research group, questioned Clinton's "phony populism on free trade."
"A peculiar thing happens every time Hillary Clinton decides to run for President," the group said in a blog post. "Her views on free trade start sliding left and she calls for a 'time out' on free trade agreements."
These Republican attacks - and more likely to come - show the political problem Clinton faces. If she runs for President, she will either have to woo labor and liberal leaders by blasting agreements like TPP and NAFTA and risk looking like she is backtracking on her State Department years. Or she can embrace deals that she made at State and risk what has become eager liberal anger....
1/14/15
Washington (CNN)Two decades later, Hillary Clinton is still haunted by the ghosts of NAFTA.
Labor unions and liberal activists are preparing to highlight free trade — an issue central to Bill and Hillary Clinton's political brand in the early 1990s — if she opts to run for president in 2016.
Driving their anger: The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive new pact that that would usurp the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement's place as the biggest-ever free trade agreement. President Barack Obama's administration has been negotiating the Chile-to-Japan deal for years, and it's increasingly drawing scrutiny from the Democratic base as the talks near completion.
The new deal has reminded labor halls across the country of the old one — and that it was their biggest problem with the Clintons. Compounding the problem is that free trade, particularly NAFTA, is an issue that Clinton has vacillated on since her husband's administration.
As first lady, Clinton backed NAFTA and spoke highly of it at stops for the administration. But once she was elected to the Senate and later ran for president, her support of free trade -- and her husband's landmark agreement -- began to wane. On the campaign trail, Clinton acknowledged that NAFTA has "hurt a lot of American workers" and advocated for broad reform of trade policy. President Barack Obama's campaign even used the flip-flop against Clinton during the 2008 primary.
But after Clinton lost the nomination and agreed to serve as the President's Secretary of State, she began to warm up to free trade, and particularly the TPP.
...As first lady, Clinton backed NAFTA.
"I think that everybody is in favor of free and fair trade," she said during a meeting with union workers in 1996, "and I think that NAFTA is proving its worth." In her 2003 memoir, "Living History," Clinton also writes glowingly about NAFTA, including it among her husband's "legislative victories" and noting it would "expand U.S. exports, create jobs and ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization."
But when she entered the Senate in 2000 and ran for president in 2008, Clinton's tune on free trade began to change. She conducted a study as senator that found the agreement hurt New York workers' ability to sell goods in Canada and spoke out against NAFTA during her 2008 campaign.
"NAFTA and the way it's been implemented has hurt a lot of American workers," Clinton said at a 2007 forum with the AFL-CIO. "Clearly we have to have a broad reform in how we approach trade. NAFTA's a piece of it, but it's not the only piece of it."
Clinton lost her race for president, though, and went on to serve as Barack Obama's secretary of state. In the role, she oversaw the President's much noted pivot to Asia. At the center of that move was the TPP. "One of our most important tools for engaging with Vietnam was a proposed new trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would link markets throughout Asia and the Americas, lowering trade barriers while raising standards on labor, the environment, and intellectual property," Clinton wrote in her 2014 memoir "Hard Choices."
As secretary of state, Clinton also talked up the benefits of the TPP and during a trip to Korea in 2011, she advocated for "as few barriers to trade and investment as possible."
When asked for Clinton's current position on free trade and the TPP, a spokesman pointed CNN to what the former secretary of state wrote in her book.
...Before Clinton went to Michigan last year to endorse candidates, America Rising PAC, an anti-Clinton communication and research group, questioned Clinton's "phony populism on free trade."
"A peculiar thing happens every time Hillary Clinton decides to run for President," the group said in a blog post. "Her views on free trade start sliding left and she calls for a 'time out' on free trade agreements."
These Republican attacks - and more likely to come - show the political problem Clinton faces. If she runs for President, she will either have to woo labor and liberal leaders by blasting agreements like TPP and NAFTA and risk looking like she is backtracking on her State Department years. Or she can embrace deals that she made at State and risk what has become eager liberal anger....
17 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
It's all good because they're all united. Just like Joe Biden said "It's time to actually create a New World Order"
Once, people that mentioned the phrase were called "Conspiracy Theorists". Now that Joey the Drug Czar talks about it, does that make HIM a "Conspiracy Theorist"?
What kind of person plays upon the gullible?
