The Washington Post-Pro-Haley group falsely says DeSantis wanted to fast track China deals

2023-11-01T21:15:03.580Z

“DeSantis even voted to fast-track Obama’s Chinese trade deals.”

— Voice-over in a campaign ad by SFA Fund, a super PAC that backs former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (R)

Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are tied for a distant second place, behind former president Donald Trump, in the latest NBC News-Des Moines Register-Mediacom Iowa poll of Republicans in Iowa, whose voters will be the first to weigh in on the presidential race when they have their caucuses Jan. 15. It’s been a stunning drop for DeSantis, once seen as Trump’s main rival, and a rapid rise for Haley.

Now both teams are playing fast and loose with the facts.

This Stand for America super PAC ad starts with a voice-over saying DeSantis “can’t stop lying about Nikki Haley.” There are images of fact checks of a ridiculous claim DeSantis made about Haley — that a vague statement she made about how not all Gaza residents are supporters of Hamas meant she wanted to take in waves of Gaza refugees. We did not get around to vetting that claim, or else we would have given it Four Pinocchios. PolitiFact said it was “false,” as did Check Your Fact. David Weigel of Semafor said DeSantis “made it up,” which sounds about right.

It’s fair to call out DeSantis for his statement, which was amplified by his own super PAC, Never Back Down. But then this Haley ad offers its own whopper — that DeSantis voted to “fast-track Obama’s Chinese trade deals.” During the voice-over, the ad displays an image of DeSantis, wearing a face mask, standing behind Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The ad concludes with some tough talk on China by Haley. “Communist China won’t just lose. Communist China will end up on the ash heap of history,” she declares.

The Facts

The ad sets up the claim about trade deals with this line: “DeSantis gave millions to Chinese companies.” The citation is a Washington Times article from February 2020 titled “Lexmark, Lenovo tech funnels data to China intelligence services.” The article reported on a study that claimed Chinese-owned technology companies posed a security challenge.

What did this have to do with DeSantis? Good question. He’s not mentioned in the article. There is a reference to Florida having a contract with Lexmark, one of the companies named in the report. (Lexmark, a Kentucky-based printer manufacturer with Chinese investors, said the report was riddled with inaccuracies.) But there is no indication DeSantis even awarded the contract.

Then the ad makes its claim about DeSantis voting for Obama’s trade deals with China. Before being elected governor, DeSantis was a member of the House, so ancient congressional votes are always ripe for mischief in attack ads. This is an especially lame attempt.

The ad cites two votes in 2015. One, on June 12, was for the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which was passed to avert a government default. The text of the deal does not mention China nor trade with China. The other vote, on June 18, was the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015. This bill at least has something to do with trade, but the claim in the ad is a real stretch.

Essentially, this bill was a vote to extend Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), or in the nomenclature of Congress, allowing a president to “fast-track” trade legislation. Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress regulates trade with foreign nations, but in recent decades it often has delegated negotiating authority to the executive branch. In the House, the bill passed by a vote of 218-208, with 190 Republicans voting for it — so DeSantis was not an outlier in his party.

In simple terms, TPA means that if a president negotiates a trade agreement with another country and brings it to Congress for approval, lawmakers have no opportunity to amend the agreement and simply must vote either for it or against it. Why is that necessary? No country is willing to waste years or even months on negotiations to strike a deal with the United States — only to see Congress change the terms later. According to the Congressional Research Service, Congress has sometimes directed an administration to renegotiate certain provisions in a trade agreement before it came up for vote, but ultimately lawmakers have approved every deal submitted under TPA.

Preya Samsundar, a spokesperson for Stand for America, flooded us with material to make the case that by voting for TPA, DeSantis was allowing Obama to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That deal, which Donald Trump ultimately rejected, included the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

So where’s China? Samsundar argued that there were indications that China might one day join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She noted that Obama at one point said China had been “putting out feelers” about “participating at some point.”

That was basically diplomatic happy talk. The Trans-Pacific deal was designed to counter China.

“It is absolutely incorrect to say that the TPP is a vote for a ‘Chinese trade deal,’” said Michael G. Plummer, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Italy and co-author of a 2012 book on the partnership. “In fact, the truth is just the opposite. China was never part of the negotiations. As you suggest, it was an agreement that would have helped the U.S. improve its economic engagement with Asia and would have given it a leg up on China in the region, which is the most dynamic in the world.”

In any case, the Trans-Pacific Partnership never came up for a vote in Congress before Trump pulled the United States out of it. The enhanced trade authority that DeSantis voted for was used to negotiate agreements with European countries — and Trump used an extension of TPA to negotiate the rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

Samsundar also sent us documents indicating the United States negotiated with China on a variety of trade issues with China after TPA was approved, but we’re not sure what the point is. Both countries are among the top export markets for each other, and trade discussions occur frequently, no matter which administration. She did not respond when we asked whether Haley was saying a president should not negotiate any trade deals with China.

The Pinocchio Test

By any measure, this ad does not pass the laugh test. It makes accusations against DeSantis that turn to dust upon closer inspection. His vote for Trade Promotion Authority in 2015 did not result in the “fast-tracking” of deals with China. SFA Fund earns Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios

(About our rating scale)

Send us facts to check by filling out this form

Sign up for The Fact Checker weekly newsletter

The Fact Checker is a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network code of principles