Hillary Clinton’s trade policies would devastate American workers in the traditionally blue state of New Mexico, Donald Trump’s campaign warns.
“New Mexico lost more than 12,000 manufacturing jobs since Clinton’s NAFTA and China trade deals went into effect,” the Trump campaign wrote in a press release detailing how “Hillary Clinton’s trade policies have decimated New Mexico jobs.”
The campaign notes that the deal, in particular, had serious ramifications for New Mexican ranchers who “lost out” as “U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico of cattle–New Mexico’s top ag product—fell 59 percent in the first 22 years of NAFTA.”
Similarly, the campaign argues that Clinton’s Korea Free Trade Agreement–which Trump has previously described as Hillary Clinton’s “baby”– cost Americans jobs, despite Clinton’s claims that it would create jobs. The campaign writes:
Hillary Clinton supported the “new, improved” Korea trade deal and said it would create more exports and more jobs.vIn reality, the U.S. trade deficit with Korea surged $15.4 billion (99 percent). The increase in the U.S. trade deficit with Korea equates to the loss of more than 102,500 American jobs in the first four years of the deal. After the Korea Free Trade Agreement, the U.S. trade deficit with Korea in the top ten products that New Mexico exports to Korea – including everything from transportation equipment to metal manufacturing– exploded 117 percent as exports stagnated and imports rose… In the first four years of the Korea [Free Trade Agreement], U.S. exports to Korea of dairy products– a top New Mexico agricultural export – plummeted 88 percent compared to the annual average of the four years before the [agreement].
Most significantly, Trump’s campaign argues that “Hillary’s TPP [Trans Pacific Partnership agreement] will do even more damage.” It says:
The TPP would destroy lives in New Mexico and across the country. Hillary Clinton supports the TPP. Donald Trump will kill the TPP. The TPP grants special rights to 81 foreign corporations to sue New Mexico before secret international tribunals. These panels can require New Mexico’s taxpayers to pay unlimited sums for the corporations’ loss of expected future profits. These foreign corporations need only convince the lawyers that a U.S. or New Mexico law violates their TPP rights. Their decisions are not subject to appeal and the amount they can award has no limit.
Hillary Clinton played a “leading part in drafting the Trans Pacific Partnership,” according to Bloomberg, and is on record as having praised or promoted the deal at least 45 times, according to CNN.
During the campaign, Clinton was eventually forced to distance herself from her prior support for TPP–now publicly claiming to oppose the deal in its current form. However, as she explained in a private speech made public by WikiLeaks, Clinton believes politicians need to have “both a public and a private position” on every issue.
In a private speech to Goldman Sachs executives, Clinton said that her “dream” is for a “hemispheric common market with open trade.”
Clinton’s support for globalist trade policies has earned her criticism from conservatives and liberal progressives alike.