[CTC] Hillary Clinton State Department Memoir Omits TPP Reference In Paperback Edition

[Dan Beeton]

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-state-department-memoir-omits-tpp-reference-paperback-edition


  Hillary Clinton State Department Memoir Omits TPP Reference In
  Paperback Edition

By Clark Mindock <http://www.ibtimes.com/reporters/clark-mindock> 
@clarkmindock <http://www.twitter.com/clarkmindock> On 06/07/16 AT 10:46 AM


Facing an increasingly tough primary fight against Bernie Sanders last 
October, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now the presumptive 
Democratic nominee, tried to distance herself 
<http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/08/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-now-opposes-trans-pacific-partners/> 
from her push to negotiate the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership 
trade deal during her time atop the State Department (2009-2013). After 
months of taking positions on the deal that were criticized — even by 
members of her own party 
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bernie-sanders-criticize-hillary-clinton-trade-118924> 
— as vague, Clinton said the deal wasn’t what she’d hoped it might be.

Since then she’s held fast on that position, weathering a primary fight 
that was anything but expected from the populist, self-described 
Democratic socialist Sanders, who has repeatedly railed against the TPP. 
At the same time, a review of the hardback edition of her memoir as 
secretary of state, “Hard Choices,” compared to the paperback — first 
noted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research 
<http://cepr.net/blogs/the-americas-blog/hillary-clinton-s-memoir-deletions-in-detail> 
(CEPR) — finds that segments of the book where Clinton describes an 
effort to convince American countries to join the TPP negotiations have 
been left out.

We encouraged “all open-market democracies driving toward a more 
prosperous future to join negotiations with Asian nations on TPP, the 
trans-Pacific trade agreement,” the original version of the book reads 
in a two-page segment discussing a 2009 conference in El Salvador. Those 
two pages have been cut from the paperback version of the book, 
according to CEPR.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim 
countries that was signed earlier this year in New Zealand.

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in El Salvador in June 2009. 
Photo: Reuters That isn’t the only portion of the memoir where Clinton 
discusses TPP, an International Business Times review found. Earlier in 
the book when describing her work with China, Clinton noted that there 
were several potential upsides to negotiating the TPP.  In the segment, 
which does not appear to have been omitted from the paperback versions 
of the book, she also says that, because the negotiations were ongoing, 
it made sense to “reserve judgment.”

Negotiating TPP was “important for American workers, who would benefit 
from competing on a more level playing field. And it was a strategic 
initiative that would strengthen the position of the United States in 
Asia,” she wrote.

She then wrote that her positions on trade when running for president in 
2008 were similar to that of President Barack Obama’s.

“Our country has learned the hard way over the past several decades that 
globalization and the expansion of international trade brings costs as 
well as benefits. On the 2008 campaign trail, both then-Senator Obama 
and I had promised to pursue smarter, fairer trade agreements,” she 
wrote. “It’s safe to say TPP won’t be perfect — no deal negotiated among 
a dozen countries ever will be — but its higher standards, if 
implemented and enforced, should benefit American businesses and workers.”

Clinton has come under scrutiny for her role in championing TPP 
negotiations while secretary of state. The presumptive Republican 
nominee, Donald Trump, has hit her 
<http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/donald-trump-campaign-demands-state-department-release-hillary-clintons-trade> repeatedly 
on the issue.  On Monday his campaign demanded that she release emails 
from her time working on the deal after an IBT story 
<http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/state-department-blocks-release-hillary-clinton-era-tpp-emails-until-after> 
noted that the State Department had delayed until after the November 
election a July 2015 request for the documents that the department said 
would be made available in April.

Sanders has taken a position against TPP, saying it is designed to 
protect the interests of large, multinational corporations at the 
expense of consumers and the environment. He says it will hurt poor 
people in the world as well 
<https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/the-trans-pacific-trade-tpp-agreement-must-be-defeated?inline=file>.

Requests for comment sent to the Clinton campaign and Simon & Schuster, 
publisher of “Hard Choices,” were not immediately returned.


-- 

Dan Beeton
International Communications Director
Center for Economic and Policy Research
1611 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 202-239-1460
Cell: 202 256-6116
Skype: dan.beeton
E-mail: beeton at cepr.net <mailto:mbeeton at cepr.net>/ www.cepr.net 
<http://www.cepr.net>
Twitter: @Dan_Beeton <https://twitter.com/Dan_Beeton>

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