Hillary Clinton doubled down on her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on Thursday at a rally in Warren, Michigan, going against President Obama’s support for the deal.
Clinton said that as president she would stop any trade deal, including TPP, that kills jobs or negatively affects wages for workers.
"I oppose it now, I’ll oppose it after the election, and I’ll oppose it as president," Clinton said.
Clinton’s opposition to TPP is a strong repudiation of President Obama’s touted trade deal that he believes will be positive for creating jobs.
"When we’ve gotten it done, the Trans-Pacific Partnership will do even more to lower the costs of exporting, eliminating taxes and custom duties and raising intellectual property standards that protect data and ideas and jobs," Obama said.
Despite Clinton’s opposition to TPP on the campaign trail, she used to tout the trade deal as the "gold standard" of trade agreements when she was secretary of state.
"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. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment," Clinton said in 2012.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D.), a staunch Clinton supporter, said last month that he believed Clinton would reverse her position on TPP once she is elected president.
Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, fired back on Twitter that McAuliffe was "flat wrong," but many progressives are still skeptical of Clinton since she previously supported TPP.