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Hillary Clinton’s experience as Secretary of State is one of the main points of delineation she makes when comparing herself to her opponent. CNN’s Reality Check Team put her statements and assertions about foreign policy to the test.

The team of reporters, researchers and editors across CNN listened throughout the speech and selected key statements, rating them true; mostly true; true, but misleading; false; or it’s complicated.

Reality Check: Clinton says Trump presidency a top risk to global economy

June 22, 2016

By Tony Marco, CNN

Clinton said economists consider a Trump presidency a top risk to the the global economy. “That is just astonishing, and it’s no wonder that the group called the Economist Intelligence Unit, one of the leading firms that analyzes the top threats to the global economy now ranks a Trump presidency number three right behind problems in China and volatility in the commodities markets,” explained Clinton.

The UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit did, in fact, list a Trump presidency in its top global risks this month, saying the chances of this happening have increased since he became the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee. The EIU cited terrorism on U.S. soil, international trade, his militaristic tendencies towards the Middle East, a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. and how he would deal with an economic downturn as concerns.

‘“Although we still do not expect Mr. Trump to defeat Ms. Clinton, there are risks to this forecast, especially given the terrorist attack in Florida in June,” says the risk report, issued last week. “It is worth noting that the innate hostility within the Republican hierarchy towards Mr Trump, combined with the inevitable virulent Democratic opposition, will see many of his more radical policies blocked in Congress – albeit such internal bickering will also undermine the coherence of domestic and foreign policymaking,” concluded the report.

Verdict: TRUE.

Reality Check: Clinton’s role getting NATO involved in Libya

April 14, 2016

By Eve Bower, CNN

During an extended exchange about America’s role in the downfall of Gadhafi, Clinton and Sanders clashed over the nature of Clinton’s influence within the Obama administration in early 2011. And though numerous senior officials at the time painted a picture of an active and influential Clinton, on the Brooklyn debate stage five years later, Clinton seemed to downplay her own role in crafting U.S. policy in Libya.

In a recent interview, President Barack Obama said that his administration’s “failing” to plan for the aftermath of the 2011 U.S.-led NATO intervention in Libya was among his biggest mistakes in office. Echoing this, Sanders accused Clinton of having contributed to a “very dangerous foothold” for ISIS in Libya through her “active effort for regime change” as part of the Obama administration at the time.

In her response, Clinton emphasized that the decision to intervene was Obama’s, and that her role as secretary of state was – merely, she implied – one of “due diligence.”

But as the President announced his administration’s decision to enforce a no-fly zone in March 2011, senior U.S. officials were clear that Clinton had been instrumental in persuading U.S. allies to join the coalition.

Clinton traveled between Washington, Paris, Cairo, and Tunisia, pressuring her counterparts in other countries to send planes to Libya and support a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing intervention.

In these actions, she is widely described as having been part of a strong alliance of powerful voices within Obama’s administration that included U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and National Security Council member Samantha Power. Clinton’s advocacy put her at odds, however, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who had publicly argued against a no-fly zone, and Vice President Joe Biden, who was said to favor a much more cautious approach.

Perhaps some of the clearest signs that Clinton herself, at one time at least, saw the importance of her own role can be found in emails she exchanged with advisers in 2011, and later made public as part of congressional inquiries into the deaths of four Americans in the 2012 Benghazi terror attack. In one email, she complained to staffers about timelines they had compiled for the media that did not show “much of what I did.” One such timeline detailed a “tick-tock” of 22 milestones in Clinton’s “leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country’s Libya policy from start to finish.”

Clinton’s minimized her efforts at Thursday’s debate as mere “due diligence.” Because the statement obscures the real impacts she had, we rate her statement as FALSE.

Reality Check: Clinton on Iran’s nuclear program

March 13, 2016

By Ryan Browne, CNN

When Clinton was asked whether her record in office was overly interventionist, she referenced her role in helping lay the foundations for the international effort to curb Iran’s nuclear program. She described the Iranian nuclear program as being highly advanced when President Barack Obama took office.

Clinton said, “You know, when President Obama went into office and I became secretary of state, the Iranians had mastered the nuclear fuel cycle. They had built covert facilities, they had stocked them with centrifuges. All of that happened while George W. Bush was president, and we had done, you know, sanctions and everything that we could think of as the United States government and Congress, but it hadn’t stopped them. And there were a lot of other countries in the region who said they would take military action if necessary.”

Iran’s nuclear program dates all the way back to the 1980s. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed off on sanctions against Iran to penalize it for pursuing a nuclear program. But the Iranian government did not announce it had mastered the nuclear fuel cycle until the end of 2010, nearly two years into Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

Iran now produces everything it needs for the nuclear fuel cycle, making its nuclear program self-sufficient, the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization told state media Sunday.

While Iran’s nuclear program made great strides during the Bush presidency, the fuel cycle was mastered during the early years of the Obama administration, and Iran’s use of covert facilities dates all the way back to the 1990s.

Clinton’s statement that these developments occurred while Bush was in office is FALSE.

Reality Check: Clinton on her role in the Iran nuclear deal

March 13, 2016

By Laura Koran, CNN

Clinton took credit for bringing Iran to the negotiating table for a deal that would restrict its nuclear program.

Clinton conceded that some sanctions on Iran were imposed under George W. Bush’s administration, but went on to suggest that these did nothing to slow Iran’s weapons-related nuclear activities.

“So I led the effort to impose sanctions on Iran, to really bring them to the negotiating table,” said Clinton, adding, “the negotiations started under my watch.”

Talks did in fact begin during Clinton’s tenure leading the State Department, and she did play an important role galvanizing international support for tougher sanctions, but Clinton’s statements Sunday minimize significant contributions by both Congress and the Bush administration.

In her 2014 memoir, “Hard Choices,” Clinton wrote about how negotiations emerged from back-channel discussions through the Sultan of Oman, who ultimately suggested the talks. Clinton later sent a top aide to Oman to meet with the Iranians, paving the way for a critical phone call between President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and the commencement of more formal negotiations.

Clinton also argued successfully for harsher U.S. and United Nations Security Council sanctions that increased the pressure on Iran’s economy in the months leading up to negotiations.

In particular, Clinton lobbied foreign powers to sign on to nuclear-related sanctions in early 2010, helping build unity among the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China behind the measures.

Congress also imposed new unilateral sanctions against Iran around that time, but in some cases, those measures actually went further than the Obama administration wanted to go, and were in fact publicly opposed by State Department officials.

Clinton’s statements Sunday also undervalue the usefulness of measures taken by the Bush administration, led by then-Undersecretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey.

In fact, in the last three years of the Bush administration, the U.N. Security Council imposed several rounds of tough international sanctions against Iran in connection with the country’s nuclear activity. It’s possible these sanctions, in addition to the ones Clinton promoted, affected Iran’s calculus in deciding to pursue diplomatic talks.

Verdict: MOSTLY TRUE. Clinton played a major role in bringing about the Iran talks, but those initiatives were bolstered by congressional action – some of which her department opposed – and by Bush-era measures.

Reality Check: Clinton on NATO-Arab coalition in Libya

February 23, 2016

By Ryan Browne and Amy Gallagher, CNN

When Cuomo followed up on a voter’s question to Clinton by asking her about Libya, Clinton highlighted the fact that European and Arab nations had joined the U.S. during the 2011 intervention in the country. “We formed the first coalition between NATO and Arab nations,” she asserted. In the course of this campaign, many of the presidential candidates have said that such a coalition will be key to fighting ISIS, so being a part of the team assembling the first such coalition would be important experience for Clinton to tout in her quest for the presidency.

Clinton is correct in saying that the NATO-led Operation Unified Protector in Libya involved a coalition that included the Arab nations of Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. However, this was not the first time NATO led a coalition with Arab participants. In Afghanistan in 2003, NATO took the lead of the International Security Assistance Force, which included the Arab states of Bahrain, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

Prior to Afghanistan, there was military cooperation between many of the same nations during the first Gulf War in 1991. At that time, 14 of the 16 NATO member nations joined forces with nine Arab states, including Bahrain, Qatar, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.

While Clinton was correct that the coalition in Libya included NATO and Arab nations working together, it was not the first time. Therefore, we rate her claim FALSE.

Reality Check: Clinton on Iraq War vote

February 3, 2016

By Ryan Browne, CNN

When asked about her 2002 Senate vote that authorized military action in Iraq, Clinton said she regretted the vote but at the time thought it would help compel Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s government to allow the U.N. to continue inspections for possible weapons of mass destruction.

Clinton said: “The very explicit appeal that President Bush made before announcing the invasion that getting that vote would be a strong piece of leverage in order to finish the inspections. And he made that comment. And the U.N. inspector, Hans Blix, said give us the time, we will find out, give us the hammer over their head, namely the vote, and we will be able to find out what they still have in terms of (weapons of mass destruction).”

While Clinton during the time of the vote did say that it was not a vote for unilateralism, the then-senator from New York opted to vote against an amendment to the resolution that would have stressed a U.N.-centric approach.

The amendment by Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, would have limited U.S. military action to enforcing a new U.N. resolution to eliminate Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. If the United Nations did not act, Congress would immediately be convened so the president could seek a second vote to move against Iraq without U.N. support.

Blix, who was the U.N. chief weapons inspector at the time, never voiced support for a unilateral military authorization in Iraq.

While speaking to the U.K. Iraq War inquiry in 2010, Blix acknowledged the pressure of the U.S. military buildup in the region had led Saddam to permit U.N. inspectors to return in September 2002.

However, Blix also said that he did not believe the U.S. was entitled to invade Iraq without a U.N. Security Council resolution specifically authorizing military action.

Clinton’s statement seems to suggest that Blix requested the Senate vote to aid inspections. There appears to be no evidence of this.

Verdict: FALSE.

Reality check: Hillary Clinton on the Trans-Pacific Partnership

October 13, 2015

Clinton said, “I did say when I was secretary of state three years ago that I hoped it would be the gold standard. It was just finally negotiated last week and in looking at it, it did not meet my standards.”

Negotiations on the TPP trade agreement began while Clinton was secretary of state, but the significant details were worked out after she left that office.

In fact, Clinton did not say she “hoped” the TPP would be the gold standard, at the time she said the deal set the gold standard.

“This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field,” Clinton said at an event in Australia in 2012. “And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world’s total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment.”

Nearly three years have passed, and Clinton has been out of office for most of that time as talks have proceeded on the important details of the deal. As such, it is reasonable for Clinton to claim that the deal has changed since she supported it and was involved in its negotiation.

However, in some ways, the deal has strengthened over the years in areas that Clinton has cited as key concerns.

Clinton now says the deal doesn’t do enough to address currency manipulation. But the deal didn’t include clear language on that topic in 2013 either, when critics in Congress were calling for it to be added.

She also says she is concerned about the benefits the deal gives to pharmaceutical companies – which are strengthened under TPP, but less than they would have been under the deal in its 2013 state.

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VERDICT: Clinton’s claim she said she “hoped” TPP would be the gold standard is FALSE. She said it was the gold standard and fully supported the negotiations. Her broader point about the deal changing since she left office is TRUE, BUT MISLEADING. The deal has changed in the past three years, but in some instances those changes have improved the very deficiencies she cites.