Clinton Doubles Down on “Trade Prosecutor” Lie

 

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually said very little about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement during the September 26 and October 9 POTUS debates. She did reference NAFTA, general economic topics, and Chinese illegal dumping of steel.

The most focused statements Clinton made about the TPP and other trade agreements were as follows:

“I’m going to have a special prosecutor. We’re going to enforce the trade deals we have, and we’re going to hold people accountable.” — 09-26-16

“I would have a trade prosecutor to make sure that we don’t get taken advantage of by China on steel or anything else.” — 10-09-16

 

Those statements are significantly problematic, because Clinton is well-aware that a new “trade prosecutor” cannot be interjected into existing trade agreements, nor into the TPP. That’s because each existing trade agreement has previously agreed-upon courses of action for trade grievances.

Trade agreements are generally enforced when partner countries take their grievances to the World Trade Organization or to a global tribunal, via the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism. These contentious situations often take years to be resolved. While the aggrieved parties await resolutions, American industry suffers. For example, the U.S. steel industry’s production fell 27% in 2015, largely due to currency manipulation and illegal dumping on the part of Asian nations, especially China.

If Clinton were going to appoint a special prosecutor — and we’re assuming here that such a person would actually have the power to make a dent in trade problems — why didn’t she influence the appointment of such a person at any point during the last 30 years?

More importantly, Clinton knows that a new trade prosecutor would have no jurisdiction over existing trade agreements. That means that she lied to the American people during the debates, when she proposed using a trade prosecutor as a way to resolve trade grievances. Clinton was obviously aware that the idea of a “trade prosecutor” would help the audiences accept her changing positions on the TPP, and she merely wanted to quickly get off that topic, while still sounding credible.

On Nov. 5, 2012, Clinton stated, “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.” She actually publicly favored the TPP 45 times, according to this CNN article.

Once the TPP was signed by the partner countries’ trade ministers in early October 2015, Clinton came out against the TPP. Her stance changed in 2015, clearly influenced by the preponderance of POTUS candidates who opposed the TPP, including her Democratic opponent Senator Bernie Sanders, and her most prominent Republican opponents as well.

It’s not uncommon for political candidates to change positions on issues, depending upon political expedience. And it’s certainly not uncommon for political candidates to lie to constituents. In the case of Secretary Clinton, we are presented with a person who has changed her stance on the TPP to curry favor among her constituents, and we are also presented with a person who blatantly lied during the debates about how she would handle trade problems, knowing full well that her response sounded believable.

reference materials:

Transcript of the First Debate — The New York Times, September 27, 2016

Transcript of the Second Debate — The New York Times, October 10, 2016

Hillary Clinton flip-flops on Trans-Pacific Partnership — PolitiFact, October 8, 2015

45 times Secretary Clinton pushed the trade bill she now opposes — CNN, June 15, 2015

Paperback version of Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ omits her former TPP trade pact support — Fox News, June 11, 2015

 

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Crista Huff is a stock market expert and a conservative political activist. She works with End Global Governance and issues groups to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. Send questions and comments to research@goodfellowllc.com.