During Saturday night’s GOP presidential debate, Donald Trump blasted President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which had been previously endorsed by several of his GOP rivals on the stage beside him.
Trump told viewers:
I will bring jobs back from China. I will bring jobs back from Japan. I will bring jobs back from Mexico, where New Hampshire, by the way, has been virtually wiped out. They’ve lost so many businesses going to Mexico because of horrible trade deals. And now we’re about to sign another trade deal, TPP, which is going to be a disaster for this country, because they don’t talk about monetary manipulation. It is going to be a disaster. I’m going to bring jobs back and I’ll start bringing them back very fast.
Indeed, according to the Economic Policy Institute, New Hampshire was one of the “10 hardest-hit states” in terms of the percentage of “jobs lost or displaced due to the growing goods trade deficit with China.” According to the report, 22,700 New Hampshire jobs were lost or displaced “since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 to 2013.”
Similarly, a 2011 EPI report entitled, “Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA” found that 4,000 New Hampshire “jobs [were] displaced due to trade deficits with Mexico.”
Trump’s aggressive opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, coupled with his pledge to crack down on the illicit trading practice of currency manipulation distinguishes him from his GOP rivals.
Indeed, both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz voted down an amendment spearheaded by Sen. Rob Portman to address currency manipulation.
As Breitbart News has previously reported, economist Robert Scott has documented how eliminating currency manipulation could create 2.3 to 5.8 million jobs. Scott’s 2014 report states that initiating “policies that would make currency manipulation costly and/or futile… [would] create jobs in every state and in most or all congressional districts. They would boost GDP, boost jobs and reduce unemployment, and actually reduce the federal deficit by spurring economic growth — all without direct budget costs. No other policies could achieve this economic trifecta.”
Last week, Trump’s campaign told Breitbart News exclusively that a Trump presidency is the only way to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. “A Trump presidency is the only guaranteed way to keep America out of this disastrous trade deal,” his campaign wrote in an exclusive statement.
By contrast, donor-class favorite Marco Rubio has previously endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, calling it the “second pillar” of a President Rubio’s three pillar foreign policy strategy. However, when reporters try to ask Rubio about it today, Sen. Rubio now says that he will not tell the American people whether he will vote for the trade deal, which he voted to fast-track, until May 18th or later — i.e. two months after Super Tuesday.
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