Sanders, Clinton compete for anti-TPP votes

During the Democratic debate last night, the two presidential candidates decried the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement for not protecting American workers from unfair foreign competition.    Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., and Hillary Clinton professed strong opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement during last night’s televised debate in New Hampshire as they try to court the liberal base of the Democratic Party.
   Both candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination said they favor economic engagement with the rest of the world, but only if trade rules don’t put American workers at a disadvantage.
   Many low- and middle-income Americans are disillusioned by trade deals, believing that they have cost millions of manufacturing jobs and eroded the standard of living to the benefit multinational corporations seeking lower production costs overseas.
   Clinton, who supported the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s and TPP negotiations when she was secretary of state in the Obama administration, is trying to demonstrate she can be a Progressive like Sanders. She explained that she philosophically believes in free trade, but that each agreement must be evaluated on its own merits.
   Clinton noted that she voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement when she was in the Senate because it didn’t benefit American workers and that as secretary of state she helped renegotiate the Korea Free Trade Agreement inherited from the Bush administration to improve access for U.S. autos and other products.
   “I did hope that the TPP, negotiated by this administration, would put to rest a lot of the concerns that many people have expressed about trade agreements. And I said that I was holding out that hope that it would be the kind of trade agreement that I was looking for.
   “I waited until it had actually been negotiated because I did want to give the benefit of the doubt to the administration. Once I saw what the outcome was, I opposed it,” she explained.
   “We have to trade with the rest of the world,” said Clinton. “We are 5 percent of the world’s population. We have to trade with the other 95 percent. And trade has to be reciprocal. That’s the way the global economy works. But we have failed to provide the basic safety net support that American workers need in order to be able to compete and win in the global economy. So it’s not just what’s in the trade agreement that I’m interested in.”
   Trade ministers from the United States and 11 other nations on Wednesday signed the TPP in New Zealand after more than five years of negotiations. Individual countries must now ratify the agreement for it to take effect. The Obama administration faces an uphill battle to win support for the deal in Congress this year because many Democrats remain in opposition or on the fence.
   Sanders, who has never supported a trade deal during his 20-plus years in Congress, highlighted his anti-trade credentials, but added that he will work for fair trade deals.
   “I believe in trade, but I do not believe in unfettered free trade. I believe in fair trade which works for the middle class and working families of this country and not just large multinational corporations,” the Vermont senator said. “I was not only in opposition to NAFTA…I was on the picket line in opposition to NAFTA.
   “We heard all of the people tell us how many great jobs would be created. I didn’t believe that for a second because I understood what the function of NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR (Permanent Normal Trade Relations) with China, and the TPP is, it’s to say to American workers, ‘Hey, you are now competing against people in Vietnam who make 56 cents an hour minimum wage.’
   “I don’t want American workers to compete against people making 56 cents an hour. I don’t want companies shutting down in America, throwing people out on the street, moving to China, and bringing their products back into this country.
   “So, do I believe in trade? Of course, I believe in trade,” said Sanders. “But the current trade agreements over the last 30 years were written by corporate America, for corporate America, resulted in the loss of millions of decent-paying jobs, 60,000 factories in America lost since 2001, millions of decent-paying jobs; and also a downward spiral, a race to the bottom where employers say, ‘Hey, you don’t want to take a cut in pay? We’re going to China.’
   “Workers today are working longer hours for lower wages. Trade is one of the reasons for that,” he added.
   During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama used similar rhetoric and said that he would rip apart NAFTA and other trade deals and get them renegotiated. But once he was president, Obama’s administration pushed aggressive trade policies, including launching talks with the European Union on a free trade agreement, pushing to conclude the Panama free trade agreement, and signing onto the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement.