The second WikiLeaks dump of emails linked to Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta released Monday showed that a top Clinton aide wanted to pressure the White House to slow down its push for the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) in 2015.
The email in question, dated from March 7, 2015, was from Clinton foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan and fell under the subject heading “Fwd: TPA/TPP Letter.” In the email sent to Podesta and Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, Sullivan appeared to express his concerns with how aggressively the Obama administration was pushing to pass the TPA through the House and the Senate.
“We need to get the White House to slow the train down. Like wait a week.”
“We need to get the White House to slow the train down. Like wait a week,” Sullivan wrote. “We will have a strong draft of an HRC letter tomorrow, but it would be odd for her to send it a day or two before the whole crew sends theirs.”
TPA, a fast-track authority that gave the president “enhanced power to negotiate major trade agreements with Asia and Europe,” allows the president to “submit trade deals to Congress for an expedited vote without amendments,” as The New York Times dubbed it. TPA would make it much easier for trade deals to pass through Congress because the TPA’s implementation takes away Congress’ own power to amend the deal while also taking away the Senate’s power to filibuster trade deals.
The TPA was linked with the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) workers assistance program and the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). President Obama argued the passage of TPA was a requirement for pushing the TPP through Congress, as well as any other impending trade agreements.
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When the TPA package finally came before Congress without being linked directly to the TAA program, it passed in both the House and Senate in June 2015. Obama subsequently signed the TPA into law on June 29, 2015.
At the time when Sullivan sent the email to Podesta and Mook in March, many Democrats and Republicans in both chambers of Congress were bitterly divided over Obama’s push for passing the TPA and the potential for executive overreach.
The looming possibility of a vote on TPP remains intensely controversial, as its opponents say implementing the deal would cause disastrous economic harm to the U.S. A Tufts University study found that implementing the TPP would cost the U.S. nearly 450,000 jobs by the year 2025. The pro-trade Peterson Institute also found that TPP would result in 121,000 fewer manufacturing jobs by 2030 if the U.S. pushes forward with it.
Clinton, who once called the TPP trade deal the “gold standard” back in 2012, has come under fire during both the primary and general presidential election seasons for her flip-flopping. Clinton, who has since backed away from her initial support for the TPP, received significant flak from former rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sanders and fellow progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts have vehemently opposed the TPP’s implementation, warning of the disastrous effects such a trade deal would pose for American workers and their jobs. GOP nominee Donald Trump has also hit Clinton hard over her inconsistencies on the trade deal — even as she struggles to woo Sanders’ passionate remaining supporters, who have been reluctant to support her.
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In another email leaked from WikiLeaks, The Huffington Post columnist Brent Budowsky wrote to Podesta on May 9, 2015, expressing his frustration and warning he might “blast the living crap out of Obama” for how the president chided liberals who remained reluctant or opposed to implementing the TPP.
“For Obama to be insulting Harry Reid and Elizabeth Warren right now on trade is the most politically stupid and maladroit move in my memory from any Democratic president,” Budowsky wrote. “For Obama to be insulting labor unions and progressives right now on trade is not only politically stupid for his own position but it hurts Hillary Clinton by inflaming the very Democrats who have doubts about her that liberals such as myself are trying to remedy even though I — unlike many who travel in your circles — have no desire to get another high level job in government and no desire to become a lobbyist for banks or consultant to British conservatives or give paid speeches to oil companies,” he added.
The revelation that a top Clinton aide wanted to pressure the White House to slow down its aggressive push in promoting the TPA and the TPP suggests the Clinton campaign knew that her iffy stance on TPP could cause her problems during her upcoming bid for the presidency.
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