Hillary Clinton breaks with Obama to oppose Trans Pacific Partnership

After months of prevarication, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton on Wednesday has come out against a landmark trade agreement reached earlier this week between the United States, Japan and 10 other countries circling the Pacific Ocean.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (or TPP) trade deal, which would create one of the largest free trade areas in the world, had presented a political hurdle for Clinton, who promoted trade talks while serving as secretary of state but has since distanced herself from it as a presidential candidate, to court liberal voters, who strongly oppose the pact.

In a taped interview with PBS’s NewsHour, Clinton said “as of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it”. The former secretary of state added, “I don’t have the text, we don’t yet have all the details, I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set.”

Clinton criticized it in particular for failing to address currency manipulation and because of her worries that “pharmaceutical companies may have gotten more benefits and patients and consumers got fewer”.

The statement marks a reversal from Clinton, who had long been supportive of the agreement and played a leading role in its negotiation while serving as secretary of state, repeatedly expressing her support for the deal. In 2012, she told an audience in Australia, “This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field.”

It also marks Clinton’s biggest departure so far in her campaign from the policies of the Obama administration. On Monday, Obama praised the deal “as an agreement that reflects America’s values and gives our workers the fair shot at success they deserve.” The Clinton campaign gave advance notice on Wednesday that the candidate would come out against the deal, a White House official told the Guardian.

“I still believe in the goal of a strong and fair trade agreement in the Pacific as part of a broader strategy both at home and abroad, just as I did when I was secretary of state,” Clinton said in a statement after the interview. “I appreciate the hard work that President Obama and his team put into this process and recognize the strides they made. But the bar here is very high and, based on what I have seen, I don’t believe this agreement has met it.”

Despite the Obama administration’s strong support for the trade agreement, Clinton’s two most vocal competitors in the Democratic field, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley have opposed the TPP. Organized labor and many liberal groups have also come out against the free trade deal as well. However, Vice-President Joe Biden, who is considering a bid for the White House, supports the agreement.

O’Malley immediately criticised Clinton’s change of stance on the deal, telling reporters on Wednesday: “Wow. That’s a reversal. I was against the Trans-Pacific Partnership months and months ago … Secretary Clinton can justify her own reversal of opinion on this, but I didn’t have one opinion eight months ago and switched that opinion on the eve of debates. I’m against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I let people know that from the outset.”

In a statement, Senator Bernie Sanders similarly bashed the agreement while applauding Clinton’s shift.

“I am glad that Secretary Clinton has now come on board. I hope that, with her help, with the efforts of virtually every union in the country and with the opposition of many environmental groups, we can defeat this agreement which was largely written by Wall Street and corporate America,” said Sanders.

The TPP has divided Republican presidential candidates, with a number of conservatives, including Donald Trump and Rick Santorum, vocally opposing it.

The Republican establishment has been more broadly in favor of trade deals – in the 2012 election, Mitt Romney routinely attacked Obama as anti-trade even though the president had signed three free trade agreements by that point. The Republican National Committee similarly wasted no time attacking Clinton over her announcement on Wednesday.

“Despite helping negotiate the Trans-Pacific trade deal as Secretary of State and calling it a ‘gold standard,’ Hillary Clinton reversed her position after admitting she hadn’t even read the final agreement,” RNC chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. “Hillary Clinton’s painful waffling on TPP has been a case study in political expediency and is precisely why an overwhelming majority of Americans don’t trust her.”

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush said on Wednesday he was still studying the details of the TPP but was generally supportive of free trade agreements.

Florida senator Marco Rubio, who voted in the Senate to provide Obama with “fast-track” authority to negotiate the TPP, also said he was still examining the details but was “generally very much in favor of free trade”.

“I explain to people all the time the United States cannot get locked out of 95% of the world’s consumers,” Rubio told CNBC on Tuesday. “Generally, I’m disposed to being in favor of trade agreements. But again, I want to see the details before I make a firm commitment.”

In June, a proposal to fast-track the agreement, which means it cannot be amended and is subject only to an up-and-down vote, was initially derailed in Congress by a coalition of liberal Democrats and ardent Tea Partiers who opposed the deal for disparate reasons. Progressives did not believe worker protections were strong enough, while hard-right conservatives opposed giving the Obama administration broad authority to broker the deal in private.

A compromise was eventually reached, but the final deal continues to face skepticism from members of Congress.