Hillary lobbied Big Business to pressure Congress to past Fast Track for China

[Report1212]

http://www.alternet.org/hillary-clinton-has-1-day-take-serious-stand-tpp

Here's the key piece:

CLINTON: Well, I would probably just echo what I already said, at the risk of being repetitive. There was a very effective business effort in the United States on behalf of NAFTA. There was a very limited and ineffective effort on behalf of fast track. I don't know all the reasons for that. Some of them suggested, but I have no basis for any first-hand knowledge or any analysis that I find convincing. The bottom line is, however, that no one in Congress felt any particular pressure, or demand, by any business interest about giving the President the authority that other presidents have had to negotiate trade agreements.

Now again, I have to conclude that either American business doesn't care about opening markets around the world -- but I find that very hard to believe -- or they feel that their involvement in politics is something that they wish to minimize or steer clear of and don't want to become participants in any effort to pass such legislation, or some other reason that I have yet to understand. But the effect was the same. For whatever reason, the fact that the American business community made a very limited effort on behalf of the fast track, left the field completely clear to the rather unusual alliance between the right of the Republican party which is isolationist, anti-American engagement, quite critical and not supportive of the United Nations, IMF or any multilateral group, and the left of the Democratic party that believes that trade authority, and trade agreements are not in the interests of American workers. So that alliance carried the day. Now when the President comes back to the Congress with a request for fast track authority I hope that American business voices will be heard.

Having said that, I would add that there does need to be sensitivity to worker and environmental concerns in trade agreements going forward in the future. Certainly if they are going to be agreements that are negotiated with the United States government and require the consent of the United States Congress. So I think that there may be some good reason for business to engage early with labor and with political leadership in Congress and the Administration to try to hammer out a consensus about the kind of fast track authority and the sort of agreements that we want our President to be negotiating. But certainly that will not happen in the absence of some very stated and obvious business concern.

So why should anyone believe she is opposed to Fast Track for TPP if the only problem she had with it for China was Big Business wasn't doing enough to pass it?