Flipping on TPP, Hillary Clinton Proves Chameleon-Like on Corporate Trade

“It’s becoming increasingly hard for any presidential candidate who expects to be elected to stay aboard this sinking ship.”

“The fact that Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump are all standing up to oppose this deal should tell you something: it’s supremely unpopular among American voters,” says Fight for the Future. (Photo: PBS News)

Indicating that support for the pro-corporate TransPacific Partnership (TPP) may already be a political third rail in the lead-up to the 2016 election, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Wednesday broke with the Obama White House, flipping her position to join Sen. Bernie Sanders and other progressives in saying she does not support the 12-nation “trade” deal.

“As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it,” Clinton told PBS News’ Judy Woodruff. “I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set. I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can about the agreement, but I’m worried.”

Clinton had previously hedged on the TPP, a deal that she backed as Secretary of State and championed in her book, Hard Choices. Her main rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Sanders (I-Vt.)—who has made opposition to the deal a centerpiece of his campaign and worked against its advancement in the Senate—said in June he was “offended by Mrs. Clinton’s silence on trade and urged her to share her real views with voters.”

Since then, the progressive outcry against the TPP and other corporate-friendly trade deals has only grown louder.

“It’s becoming increasingly hard for any presidential candidate who expects to be elected to stay aboard this sinking ship,” Evan Greer, campaign director for the advocacy group Fight for the Future, said in a statement responding to Clinton’s Wednesday announcement.