Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s flip-flopping position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is at the center of a new attack ad from the Republican National Committee (RNC) as Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump criticized Clinton for a persistent legacy of troubled trade deals in a Tuesday policy speech.
Video in a new ad shows what the RNC says is never before seen footage of Clinton praising the TPP as the “gold standard in trade agreements.” As the video continues it shows Clinton further into the 2016 election season flip-flopping to say she now opposes the TPP – a move in sharp contrast to her history of supporting trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Upon release of the video, the RNC also pointed to a research brief on Clinton’s part in drafting and driving the TPP.
“Hillary Clinton’s flip-flop on TPP is the wholesale abandonment of a central priority of hers as Secretary of State,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. “Clinton’s willingness to abandon core positions on a whim just because it’s politically expedient, is exactly why the American people struggling in the Obama-Clinton economy can’t trust that she’s fighting for them.”
This November, voters will have a choice between a Washington insider who will say or do anything to get elected to distract from her stale ideas, or a proven business leader with the vision and experience to create jobs, grow wages, and bring prosperity back for all Americans.
In a Tuesday policy speech, GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump said:
The people who rigged the system for their benefit will do anything and say anything to keep things exactly the way they are. The people who rigged the system are supporting Hillary Clinton because they know, as long as she is in charge, nothing’s going to change. The inner cities will remain poor. The factories will remain closed. The borders will remain open.
“Our founding fathers understood trade much better than our current politicians,” said Trump.
He also went after two legacies of the Bill Clinton presidency: NAFTA and China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Trump told the audience that Hillary Clinton supported both moves. He remarked that “as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton stood by idly while China cheated on its currency, added another trillion dollars to our trade deficits and stole hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property.”
Trump went on to say, “It was also Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State who shoved us into a job-killing deal with South Korea. As reported by the Economic Policy Institute in May this deal doubled our trade deficit with South Korea and destroyed nearly 100,000 American jobs. As Bernie Sanders said, Hillary Clinton voted for virtually every trade agreement that has cost the workers of this country millions, millions of jobs.”
Trump called TPP the “death blow” to American manufacturing, ceding economic leverage to a new international commission not beholden to the interests of the U.S.
“She praised or pushed the TPP on 45 separate occasions and even called it the gold standard,” announced Trump. “She has betrayed the American worker.” He predicted that if elected, Clinton will make a minor change to the behemoth trade deal then quickly pass it through.
He went after Clinton for wanting to shut down the mining industry while a Trump administration will do just the opposite, supporting the American mining industry.
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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