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Thomas Perez on Free Trade |
PEREZ: Sure. This is what the president tasked me with doing, and I was proud to do it. Which is we want to go to school on the mistakes and the lessons of past trade agreements. We want to build a trade regime that the North Star is the American worker, protecting the American worker. And so we want to make sure that when we negotiate with Mexico and Vietnam and others that we have the strongest protections for workers that we've ever had. And that's what we've set out to do, and that's what I believe we have done. The President and Secretary Clinton have a disagreement on whether TPP has gone that far. You know, this is not the first time in the history of the Democratic Party that there have been differences of opinion.
TRUMP [videotape]: I have seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and it's total devastation.
PEREZ: When I listen to Donald Trump talk about trade or anything else, he talks about slogans; Hillary Clinton talks about solutions. Look at where Trump manufactures his clothing lines, they're not here in the US.
Q: But is the solution no TPP or pushing through TPP?
PEREZ: Clinton has been clear about her opposition to TPP. We need to reward businesses who are making jobs here at home, and punish businesses who are taking jobs overseas. We make sure that we have tough enforcement, and build upon the enforcement regime of the Obama administration to go after Chinese companies dumping steel here in the US. Those sorts of tough measures, along with investments in our human capital, that's how you get things done. It's not simply slogans, which is Donald Trump, it's solutions.