Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has hurled more vitriol at President Barack Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, terming the pact a boon to China that only politicians who are "totally controlled by the lobbyists and the special interests" can support.
"The deal is insanity," Trump said in an
interview with Breitbart. "That deal should not be supported and it should not be allowed to happen."
"Nobody understands it," he said of the 5,544-page pact.
"The deal is so bad because of the fact they don’t cover currency manipulation," Trump told Breitbart. "It’s the number-one weapon used by foreign countries to hurt the United States and take away jobs."
He said China will benefit greatly from this omission.
"We are giving away what ultimately is going to be a back door for China," Trump said. "China will take advantage of it — all the weak points in it, more than anybody else."
Breitbart writer Matthew Boyle highlighted the fact that Republican challenger Sen. Marco Rubio in May cast a crucial vote to give
Obama fast-track authority to negotiate foreign trade deals.
In the interview, Trump slammed lawmakers who supported the TPP deal.
"The only people that are supporting it politically are people that are controlled by the lobbyists for certain companies that want this to happen because it’s to their advantage, not to the country’s advantage. So the lobbyists and the special interests are supporting it, and certain politicians are supporting it because they’re totally controlled by the lobbyists and the special interests."
Trump told the website that, if elected president, he would steer clear of multinational free trade agreements such as TPP.
"I would make individual deals with individual countries and currency manipulation would be a preeminent part of every deal because that’s the chief weapon that other countries — particularly China and Japan — use to take away our businesses and our jobs," he said.