Mediaboss Marketing

Story highlights A new Pacific Rim pact is giving liberal critics of 1990s free trade deals a new reason to target Hillary Clinton The debate could hamper Clinton with the Democratic base if she launches a 2016 presidential bid

Labor unions and liberal activists are preparing to highlight free trade an issue central to Bill and Hillary Clinton's political brand in the early 1990s if she opts to run for president in 2016.

Driving their anger: The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive new pact that that would usurp the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement's place as the biggest-ever free trade agreement. President Barack Obama's administration has been negotiating the Chile-to-Japan deal for years, and it's increasingly drawing scrutiny from the Democratic base as the talks near completion.

The new deal has reminded labor halls across the country of the old one and that it was their biggest problem with the Clintons.

Compounding the problem is that free trade, particularly NAFTA, is an issue that Clinton has vacillated on since her husband's administration.

As first lady, Clinton backed NAFTA and spoke highly of it at stops for the administration. But once she was elected to the Senate and later ran for president, her support of free trade -- and her husband's landmark agreement -- began to wane. On the campaign trail, Clinton acknowledged that NAFTA has "hurt a lot of American workers" and advocated for broad reform of trade policy. President Barack Obama's campaign even used the flip-flop against Clinton during the 2008 primary.

But after Clinton lost the nomination and agreed to serve as the President's Secretary of State, she began to warm up to free trade, and particularly the TPP.

Hillary Clinton's stance on President Barack Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership will be closely watched if she runs for the White House in 2016.

In her memoir, which Clinton's spokesman said was her most updated statement on the TPP, Clinton wrote, "It's safe to say that the TPP won't be perfect. No deal negotiated among a dozen countries ever will be - but its higher standards, if implemented and enforced, should benefit American businesses and workers."

That history worries some labor leaders who are prepared to hold Clinton to a standard that includes her support of free trade agreements.

See more here:
Can Hillary Clinton step out of Bill's NAFTA shadow? - CNN.com