In a Tuesday night tirade against free trade deals, Donald Trump repeatedly said that supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) want to “rape” the United States.
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country,” Trump said at a St. Clairsville, Ohio rally. “That’s what it is, too. It’s a harsh word: It’s a rape of our country.”
Hours earlier, Trump had railed against the TPP and North America Free Trade Agreement at a campaign event in Monessen, Pennsylvania, saying he would renegotiate the United States’ current trade pacts.
“I’m going tell our NAFTA partners that I intend to immediately renegotiate the terms of that agreement to get a better deal for our workers. And I don’t mean just a little bit better, I mean a lot better,” Trump said.
He said he would tell Canada and Mexico “that America intends to withdraw from the deal” if they do not agree to his request for renegotiation.
In Ohio, the presumptive GOP nominee contrasted his protectionist economic positions with those of Hillary Clinton, who he painted as a globalist who supported the TPP as secretary of state.
“This is done by wealthy people that want to take advantage of us and that want to assign another partnership,” Trump said of the TPP. “So Hillary Clinton, not so long ago, said this was the gold standard of trade pacts.”
Clinton referred to the deal as a “gold standard” during a 2012 diplomatic trip to Australia, but has since rescinded her support for the deal.
In October 2015, Clinton said the deal didn’t “meet the high bar” she set for international trade pacts, and voiced concern over the potential loss of American jobs.
