At Monday's presidential debate, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton argued over the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Nafta.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES on September 27, 2016. Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »
WASHINGTON — In his otherwise shaky performance on Monday, Donald J. Trump had his best moments of the first presidential debate on the topic of trade — a defining one for the election — as he threw Hillary Clinton on the defensive over trade pacts past and present.
Mr. Trump, primed to pounce on the issue in their initial showdown, got his opening with the first question. His aggressiveness may have been offset somewhat by demerits on substance, but Mrs. Clinton rarely corrected his mistakes. And she struggled to counter his attacks on her, especially for once calling President Obama's pending trade accord with 11 Pacific Rim nations the "gold standard" of trade agreements before turning against it as a presidential candidate.
"You were totally in favor of it. Then you heard what I was saying, how bad it is, and you said, 'I can't win that debate,'" Mr. Trump said, inaccurately claiming credit for a change of heart that had nothing to do with him.
That neither candidate came to the defense of trade and trade agreements underscored a remarkable feature of this presidential election: Both major parties' nominees are running against such pacts, despite the long pro-trade tradition of the Republican Party, and Mrs. Clinton's past endorsement of the signature trade agreements of her husband and her former boss, Mr. Obama.
Mrs. Clinton did offer qualified support: "We are 5 percent of the world's population; we have to trade with the other 95 percent. And we need to have smart, fair trade deals." No such acknowledgment came from Mr. Trump.
His first words of the night were the claim that "our jobs are fleeing the country," though nearly 15 million new jobs have been created since the economic recovery began. He singled out Ford for sending thousands of jobs to Mexico to build small cars and worsening manufacturing job losses in Michigan and Ohio, but the company's chief executive has said "zero" American workers would be cut. Those states each gained more than 75,000 jobs in just the last year. Mr. Trump said China was devaluing its currency for unfair price advantages, yet it ended that practice several years ago and is now propping up the value of its currency.
But Mr. Trump made his most cutting claims directly against both Clintons, with Mrs. Clinton on stage standing beside him and President Bill Clinton in the front row.
Repeatedly he condemned the North American Free Trade Agreement, negotiated under President George H. W. Bush and championed through Congress by Mr. Clinton, calling it "the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country" and "one of the worst things that ever happened to the manufacturing industry."
In reply — "Well, that's your opinion," she said — Mrs. Clinton declined to engage on the specific merits of Nafta, which for more than two decades has been widely counted as a main achievement of her husband. She noted generally that manufacturing jobs and personal incomes increased during his presidency, adding, "I think my husband did a pretty good job in the 1990s."
While unions and others have long blamed Nafta for economic ills in manufacturing states, independent studies have found that on balance it had little economic impact — proving neither the boon that supporters predicted nor the disaster that opponents feared.
Mr. Trump spent more time slamming Nafta than he did attacking the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which would effectively replace Nafta with new rules governing trade with Canada and Mexico as well as Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Peru. Mr. Obama is waging an uphill campaign for Congress's approval, given the antitrade climate Mr. Trump has fostered.
As a political matter, Mrs. Clinton's campaign's concern was the challenge from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an antitrade liberal who had emerged as an unexpected threat. Mr. Trump all but certainly was not a factor; even many Republicans at the time dismissed his chances of becoming their nominee.
More accurately, Mr. Trump recalled that Mrs. Clinton called the accord "the gold standard" of trade deals. That was during Mr. Obama's first term, when she was secretary of state and the accord was midway through years of negotiations.
"Well, Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but that is not the facts," Mrs. Clinton said. "The facts are I did say I hoped it would be a good deal. But when it was negotiated, which I was not responsible for, I concluded it wasn't."
As secretary of state, however, Mrs. Clinton did not talk of what she "hoped" the deal would be. More than 40 times she hailed the accord without qualification.
Beyond economics, the accord was supposed to cement President Obama's foreign policy "pivot" toward Asia, binding the United States to an alliance to counter the rising regional influence of China.
But days after the agreement's conclusion in October, Mrs. Clinton announced that she had reversed her support. Then and since, she said the T.P.P. did not meet her tests for an acceptable trade agreement: creating jobs, raising wages or advancing national security.
Economists generally have said the Pacific nations agreement would increase incomes, exports and growth in the United States, but not significantly. The administration has argued that with the agreement, some low-skill jobs would be lost, but on balance more would be created, and in export-reliant industries that pay higher wages on average.
In the debate, Mrs. Clinton pointed out that, as a senator during the George W. Bush administration, she had voted against the seven-nation Central America Free Trade Agreement. She did support some bilateral trade agreements.
Mr. Trump, in arguing that the United States is "being ripped off" by other countries, wrongly cited an example regarding Mexico. He said its value-added tax, a sort of sales tax, amounts to a 16 percent tax on American imports, although Mexico's exports into the United States face no such levy. But the tax, as in other nations with that tax system, applies to Mexico's domestic as well as imported goods. Otherwise it would be a violation of international trade rules.
Mr. Trump repeatedly said he would stop American companies from leaving the country, but never said how. He also said inaccurately that the United States had a trade deficit of almost $800 billion a year with other nations. The deficit was about $500 billion last year, after accounting for a surplus in exports of services.
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