The Full Release of the TPP May Just End Clinton's Primary Candidacy
Last edited Fri Nov 6, 2015, 03:53 PM - Edit history (1)
The title of this OP sounds hyperbolic, but given the full release of the TPP language, it's much worse than we imagined. And just how bad it is explains why Clinton has flip-flopped so hard on the TPP. In this post, I will challenge three things she's claimed:
1. That she reserved judgment until the deal was finalized
2. That she had hoped it would be the gold standard.
3. That she was hands-off, allowing the U.S. Trade Relations group handle the negotiation.
Introduction:
First, we'll establish that Clinton was Secretary of State from January 21 2009 until February 1 2013.
Next, we'll establish that the TPP was negotiated in a series of 19 formal rounds of negotiations beginning on March 15-19 2010 until August 23-30, 2013. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership_negotiations#cite_note-CAsummary-68 ) These were formal, multinational negations. Meetings continued after these, but were not official nor formal meetings, but rather meetings to finalize details for late-comers like Canada, Mexico and Japan.
This means Clinton was SoS for 15 of the 19 formal meetings to negotiate the TPP. What happened exactly in Clinton's last meeting? From https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/trans-pacific-partnership/round-15-newzealand
During the 10-day round, the 11 delegations concentrated on finding pragmatic and mutually-beneficial outcomes to remaining issues under consideration, while isolating the outstanding challenges to be addressed in the months ahead. They furthered their efforts to close the outstanding legal texts of the 29 chapters of the agreement covering all trade and investment-related issues between them, making progress across the agreement. With most chapters far along, the United States and its TPP partners agreed to work between now and the next round to address the handful of issues still open in them, in such areas as customs, telecommunications, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary issues, and other issues; and to intensify their efforts on the chapters where the volume of remaining work is more substantial.
Clinton Did Not Reserve Judgement (she simply reserved the right to reverse her position):
In other words
, by Clinton's last meeting, the TPP was 29 chapters long (final version is 30 chapters) and only a
handful of issues remained open. Clearly, Clinton was privy to most of the content of the TPP when she left office in Feb 2013. And let's review how she defended it more than 45 times during her tenure as SoS (from:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/15/politics/45-times-secretary-clinton-pushed-the-trade-bill-she-now-opposes/ )
January 31, 2013 (just before she left office)
"First and foremost, this so-called pivot has been about creative diplomacy:Like signing a little-noted treaty of amity and cooperation with ASEAN that opened the door to permanent representation and ultimately elevated a forum for engaging on high-stakes issues like the South China Sea. We've encouraged India's "Look East" policy as a way to weave another big democracy into the fabric of the Asia Pacific. We've used trade negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership to find common ground with a former adversary in Vietnam. And the list goes on."
See the article above for the other 44 times she publicly promoted TPP.
Did she reserve judgement until the deal was finalized? No, she flip-flopped before then, actually in the
first week of October. She flipped hard. And that's because, as noted in the Politifact article, that she did it for political expediency. She knows that TPP is widely unpopular among liberals, especially by liberals, true liberals like Bernie Sanders.
Clinton Knew The Contents of The TPP
But before the flip-flop, she demonstrably knew the content of the trade deal.
What about her hopes that it would be the gold standard? Well, that's not really true. Politifact also shows that she was not truthful there either in a separate article, they show the difference between her gold-standard statements before when she supported the TPP and after she flip-flopped:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/13/hillary-clinton/what-hillary-clinton-really-said-about-tpp-and-gol/
After the flip-flop, during the debate: "I did say, when I was secretary of state, three years ago,
that I hoped it would be the gold standard,"
Before the flip-flop, when she supported TPP:
"So it's fair to say that our economies are entwined, and we need to keep upping our game both bilaterally and with partners across the region through agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP. Australia is a critical partner.
This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment."
Politifact rules that Clinton's post-flip-flop statements are distorting what she actually said about the TPP.
And what about that last point? Clinton claimed she didn't work on TPP and that it was largely handled by the USTR. Well that's simply not true as shown by two different reports and state department communications:
From:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_clinton_says_she_did_not_work_on_the_trans-pacific_partnership_2015
"I did not work on TPP," she said after a meeting with leaders of labor unions who oppose the pact. “I advocated for a multinational trade agreement that would ‘be the gold standard.’ But that was the responsibility of the United States Trade Representative.”
The trouble, of course, is that Clinton’s declaration does not square with the facts.
CNN has reported that during her tenure as U.S. secretary of state, Clinton publicly promoted the pact 45 separate times. At a congressional hearing in 2011, Clinton told lawmakers that "with respect to the TPP, although the State Department does not have the lead on this—it is the United States Trade Representative—we work closely with the USTR." Additionally, secret State Department cables published by the website WikiLeaks show that her agency—including her top aides—were deeply involved in the diplomatic deliberations over the trade deal.
Clinton Directly Involved in Negotiations:
Specifically about those leaked cables:
http://www.ibtimes.com/cables-show-hillary-clintons-state-department-deeply-involved-trans-pacific-2032948
In 2012 speech in Singapore, Clinton explicitly promoted the TPP as an initiative that "will lower barriers, raise standards, and drive long-term growth across the region." She also used the collective "we" in describing the work being done on the pact, saying,
"we are making progress toward finalizing a far-reaching new trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership." She also said "we are offering to assist with capacity building, so that every country in ASEAN can eventually join." The video of the key part of her speech can be seen here:
There are many more examples in the above article that show how deeply Clinton's State Department was involved in the negotiations.
In case that's not enough, you can search Clinton's released emails yourself here:
https://foia.state.gov/Search/Search.aspx
I'll refer you to the beginning of this OP, where I highlighted the word "pivot" in her Jan 2013 defense of the TPP. In an email from Jacob Sullivan at the State Department to Hillary regarding a Financial Times Editorial about the Re-engagement with Asia specifically w.r.t. the TPP, Sullivan and Clinton have the following exchange (note: the emails aren't linkable, you'll have to search them for TPP and pivot or you can use the case number F-2014-20439:
From: H <hrod17@clintonemail.com >
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 3:17 PM
To: 'CampbelIKM@state.gov'
Subject Re: Financial Times Editorial: Re-engage with Asia, but carefully
Perfect ballet metaphor--or is it football?
From: Campbell, Kurt M [nnailto:CampbelIKM@state.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 03:14 PM
To: H; Sullivan, Jacob J <Sullivann@state.gov>
Subject: Fw: Financial Times Editorial: Re-engage with Asia, but carefully
Pivot plus balance!
From: Paradiso, Darragh T
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 08:50 AM
To: EAP-FO-Office-DL; EAP-EP-Office-DL; EAP-CM-Office-DL; EAP-ANP-Office-DL Cc: EAP-P-Office-DL
Subject: Financial Times Editorial: Re-engage with Asia, but carefully
There are many more emails between her and her staff regarding negotiations and publicity about the TPP.
Clinton Deserves Credit For Negotiating the TPP and Her Direct Involvement Made It What It Is
Clearly, Clinton was instrumental in the negotiation of the TPP. It should be no surprise. She's been involved in many trade agreements before. She certainly promoted and defended it even after she left office. Only this year has she started distancing herself from it and only once the final text was going to be released did she come out against it. Why? Because it's much worse than we could have expected. No one is going to like it.
And she can't have that on her record as another failed policy, especially one as big as this, during a primary election. She simply won't be electable if she takes her due credit for it.
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