Obama trade agenda becomes problem for Hillary Clinton

[Karmadillo]

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/235892-house-democrats-seethe-over-obamas-classified-trade

President Obama's pro-trade agenda is a problem for Hillary Clinton, who is under pressure from liberals to oppose her former boss’s push for fast-track authority as she prepares to run for the White House.

The Obama agenda is also highlighting the former secretary of State’s complicated record on trade, which could open the Democratic presidential front-runner to criticism from the left.

Robert Reich, who served as Labor secretary under former President Bill Clinton and opposes Obama's trade pitch, said the issue “could definitely be a headache for her in 2016 because it is so very unpopular among progressives.”
As first lady, Clinton watched her husband win approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, a deal that unions and liberal groups say eliminated U.S. jobs.

Clinton has distanced herself from NAFTA since then. In a 2007 Democratic debate, she called the agreement “a mistake.”

While some reports indicate Clinton backed NAFTA internally during her husband’s years in the White House, she told a union audience in 2008 that she raised the “yellow caution flag” against the pact. She and Obama both said they would renegotiate the controversial agreement during their 2008 presidential primary battle.

more...

[Rex]

1. Well then if NAFTA was a mistake, then the TPP is one global fuckup.

So I see her not in favor of such a one-sided policy. Otherwise she is admitting to making a bigger mistake. Were trade negotiations for NAFTA a secret? I don't remember.

[ND-Dem]

7. For TPP, it's supposed to be kept super-secret for four years AFTER IT GOES INTO EFFECT.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6415481

wtf is wrong with our sell-out politicians? every last damn one of them.

[Rex]

12. That is just creepier than hell!

You know what is wrong with them, they think the rulers will keep them around (all fat and happy) after all the serfs have died from slavery.

4 years is a long enough time to do it imo. Just long enough to get the infrastructure set up to be ironclad against legalities.

[joshcryer]

20. Please stop repeating that falsehood.

That specifically refers to the draft paperwork. The final treaty will be known and voted upon by Congress.

[ND-Dem]

21. tell it to the nyt.

The sensitivity of the issue is reflected in the fact that the cover mandates that the chapter not be declassified until four years after the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes into force or trade negotiations end, should the agreement fail.


So the final draft will be classified for 4 years but the "final draft" itself will be all out in the open and voted on? I don't even know what that means.

[joshcryer]

25. Yes, the final draft will be public.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Hasn't she touted the TPP's awesomeness already?

Or does it all depend on what the definition of "tout" is, or some such thing?

[RiverLover]

11. Why yes, she has.

"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.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/14/politics/hillary-clinton-trade/

*And I believe Bernie Sanders would wipe THE FLOOR with her in a debate on this. From ^ same article~

"It was very clear to me that any agreement that forces American workers to compete against desperate, desperate people who are working for pennies an hour is grotesquely unfair," Sanders said, recalling the 1990s when he traveled to Mexico to see the working and living conditions of workers producing goods sold in the U.S.

[MannyGoldstein]

13. This is why I don't think she'll run for President

She knows that a candid Liberal will wipe the floor with her history.

[RedCappedBandit]

22. Sanders says it all right there.

Forcing american workers to compete against the desperate poor is exactly what noeoliberal economics is all about, and exactly why we should oppose all such policies.

[marym625]

3. Good.

Wonder what she will say was a mistake next.

[Enrique]

4. it would be pointless for her to oppose TPP

what progressive would believe her?

[Rex]

5. No there would be a good point to it.

She already has the liberal vote no matter what people will say in public. We just vote in larger numbers and at a higher percentage. So she can either do it or not. If she doesn't, we still vote for her anyway. Only a small number won't.

So it is a huge issue she should oppose, now that she said NAFTA was a mistake. I think we were talking about standing on principles so if they are hers as well, then she will oppose it.

[Enrique]

6. "if they are hers as well"

I respectfully disagree with your view that there is a chance she is opposed to the TPP on principle. I will vote for Hillary in the general election, but when I do I'll be voting for a centrist. I don't want her claiming to be opposed to TPP, or to pose as a progressive on any other issue. That was the worst thing Obama did in 2008, that awful business with Canada and Austan Goolsbee.

[Rex]

9. I was right there with ya when BP destroyed the Gulf Coast.

And I will be doing the same thing, pulling the lever for someone that was not my first choice. She doesn't have to pose, she can always change. I would hate to think she cannot change.

Really we need someone to stand up and just tell the raw truth. Not that it can happen, the M$M would Dean Scream them or be dismissive like they were toward Al Gore.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. She voted against CAFTA with a real live Senate vote.

Bill should have killed NAFTA, but it was Bush who originated, negotiated and signed the thing, tried to fast track it and was refused, so it went to Bill who modified it and oversaw the ratification by the Congress. People who were Republicans at that time were strongly in favor of the even worse Bush original.

[Rex]

10. Yes people don't know that George Bush Sr. was the originator of NAFTA.

But the Clintons for some reason get all the blame.

[Karmadillo]

15. Regarding the blame, this may be why:

Last edited Wed Mar 25, 2015, 11:54 PM - Edit history (1)

http://clinton.procon.org/

<edit>

Clinton did successfully pass the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a treaty that eliminated tariffs and trade restrictions between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Labor unions were bitterly opposed to the treaty because they feared it would result in thousands of US jobs moving to Mexico, but Clinton believed expanding trade would actually create more jobs. [54] NAFTA was signed on Dec. 8, 1993, and received more support from Republicans than Democrats (Republicans comprised 56% of the votes to pass it in both the House and Senate)

[Elwood P Dowd]

18. True, and Reagan started talking about the damn thing even when he was in office. 1987 I think.

What was sad were the outright, bald face lies some of our Dems like Bill Richardson and Bill Bradley said about the agreement during the Fall 1993 run-up to the vote for the implementing legislation.

[2banon]

24. Actually it was John Negroponte - at least he bragged about being the author.

Remember he was Poppy Bush's Ambasador to Mexico. Then Poppy lost the next election before he was able to finalize it and push it through Congress, so he could sign off on it.

That's ok, cause Clinton came to their rescue and carried on with THEIR agenda!

So yeah, Clinton gets blamed for signing off on it. you betcha he does and deservedly so.

[2banon]

23. John Negroponte Boasted of being the Author/Crafter of NAFTA..

I did a huge double take when I heard him say that to Hofstra University Alumni / Graduates, several years ago - if memory serves it was a commencement speech.

John Negroponte served as Ambasator to Mexico under Poppy Bush and that's when NAFTA was being crafted. Poppy lost the next election to Clinton. Clinton carried on with Poppy's agenda.

I have attempted to search Hofstra University archives for that speech to link here, but I was not successful. Also, John Negroponte's Wikipeadia page does not seem to have a direct reference.

However, I was able to find a transcript of remarks he made (as then Deputy Secretary of State in 2007) in Monterey, Mexico 2007. in that speech, he claims only to "have been present" during the creation of NAFTA, almost as if not having a significant role in the crafting of NAFA. :

I was privileged to be present at the creation of NAFTA, and to now see the good it has wrought for all three partners. I feel privileged to be present as the United States and Mexico launch a new era of cooperation against crime in all its forms, an era that will free us of the suffering organized crime now causes, and secure us from the always present threat of terrorism. Two decades ago we might have been merely neighbors with a common border -- today we are partners on many of the issues of mutual import to both our nations. From the great strengths of both our nations, and from the respect and trust we bring each other, this partnership will truly succeed.

I think it might be prudent of us to know and understand who the specific players (not just the named countries) involved in the putting these nefarious treaties together are before we blindly give our collective wink and a nod in support of the next treaty to elected office holders from Congress members to the President.

[blkmusclmachine]

14. On TPP, Obama = Hillary Clinton.

SOUP LINES FOR EVERYBODY!!!

[msongs]

16. they are practically clones of each other except for the 2 obvious differences nt

[Faryn Balyncd]

17. She needs to do the right thing, & proclaim the TPP to be fatally flawed.

(and so does the President.)

[Karmadillo]

19. It seems an easy call to speak out against this. It would speak volumes if

she remains silent or, unimaginably, comes out in favor of the TPP.

[djean111]

26. She helped architect the TPP when she was SOS. And she spoke in favor of it.

So, IMO, coming out against it now would be merely campaign rhetoric, much like Obama saying he would re-negotiate NAFTA. Oh, did that happen, and I missed it?

[woo me with science]

27. kick

[woo me with science]

28. kick