A left hook: Bernie Sanders criticizes Hillary Clinton on trade deal

[merrily]

35. She was not exactly steadfastly neutral in the past, though.

Clinton has been all over the place on trade. She supported NAFTA when her husband was president. In her 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, she promised to renegotiate it. As senator, she supported Bush’s trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. But she opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005.

As secretary of state, she praised the Trans-Pacific Partnership, writing in 2011, “Our hope is that a TPP agreement with high standards can serve as a benchmark for future agreements.” She says she believes in the principle of free trade but wants Washington to be a tougher negotiator. “I believe in smart trade,” Clinton says, “pro-American trade.”

But this decision doesn’t allow a nuanced position. You have to be either for it or against it. The best outcome for Clinton would be to come out against it to protect herself politically. And then hope it passes.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/04/20/the-looming-threat-to-hillary-clintons-2016-campaign/

However, as Secretary of State, she was part of the negotiating team for the deal, calling it the “gold standard” of trade agreements. In a statement she gave in the summer of 2012, she said the agreement would “benefit” the United States. Watch it:

more, including video, at http://web.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/while-hillary-was-secretary-state-foreign-corporations-favor-tpp-paid-bill-over