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 Clinton's comments amount to an implicit rebuke of President
Barack Obama's efforts to secure the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
and a nod toward liberal critics of the deal as she campaigns to win
the Democratic nomination for the November 2016 presidential
election.
Democrats in Congress rejected a related trade package on Friday
despite a personal plea from the president. Clinton has faced
pressure from the left and the right to take a stand on the pact.
"I have held my peace because I thought it was important for the
Congress to have a full debate without thrusting presidential
politics and candidates into it," she said at a campaign stop in
Burlington, Iowa. "But now I think the president and his team could
have the chance to drive a harder bargain."
Clinton did not say whether she would support or reject the deal.
But she criticized several aspects of the agreement, which has drawn
strong opposition from labor unions, environmentalists and other
liberal interest groups.
She said that U.S. drug companies that stand to boost foreign sales
from the deal should be required to give bulk discounts to
government programs like the Medicare health plan for the elderly.
"Our drug companies, if they are going to get what they want, they
should give more to America," she said.
Clinton said a dispute-resolution process should allow greater
public input, echoing liberals like Senator Elizabeth Warren of
Massachusetts who say it gives too much power to business.
Clinton said Obama should work with opponents like House Democratic
Leader Nancy Pelosi, who led opposition to the trade package. If
Obama does not get the best deal possible, "there should be no
deal," Clinton said in Des Moines.
The pact is shaping up to be a significant test for Clinton as her
party has grown more suspicious of the merits of free trade since
her husband, Bill Clinton, signed the North American Free Trade
Agreement, or NAFTA, into law as president in 1993.
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Clinton has expressed reservations about free trade deals in the
past, but she played a central role in trade talks with the 11
countries involved in the TPP as Obama's secretary of state.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a rival for the Democratic
nomination and fierce critic of free trade, pressed her to come out
against TPP before Congress takes up the package again this week.
"If she joins us, we could stop this disastrous deal once and for
all," Sanders said on CBS's "Face the Nation" before Clinton spoke
in Iowa.
The trade package before Congress would give Obama's administration
greater authority to negotiate trade deals without interference from
lawmakers, who would be limited to an up-or-down vote once the deal
was completed.
It also would provide benefits for workers who lost their jobs due
to globalization, a provision Clinton and other Democrats support in
principle but rejected as part of their strategy to scuttle the
wider trade package.
(Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Frances Kerry and Jonathan
Oatis)
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