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Clinton Cites Obama’s Achievements on Foreign Policy

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Wednesday brushed off Donald Trump’s attacks on her record as Secretary of State by citing the Obama administration’s achievements on foreign policy while she served as America’s top diplomat.

“There’s no question we face real threats and real enemies that we need to confront and defeat. But my opponent is wrong when he says America is no longer great,” Clinton said in a speech at the American Legion national conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. “Consider the record of the past eight years. In 2009, our global economy was collapsing. Osama bin Laden was plotting. We had more than 180,000 troops fighting two wars. Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon. Many of our allies were less supportive of American leadership than they had been in decades.”

Pointing to the present, Clinton said, “We have pulled the global economy out of free fall, thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of the American people. We’ve redeployed well over 100,000 troops from Iraq and Afghanistan so they can go home, rest and train for future contingencies. We cut off Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. We convinced Russia to reduce their nuclear weapons arsenal. We protected our ally Israel. And we brought Obama bin Laden to justice.”

Clinton’s detailed defense of the administration’s foreign policy came after the Republican presidential nominee attacked her record as Secretary of State, asserting that Clinton played a significant role in crafting the administration’s “disastrous” foreign policy, in his view.

Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Washington on Wednesday, charged that Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State left America weaker than ever before.

“Look at the world before and after she became Secretary of State,” Trump said. ” Pre-Hillary, in early 2009, Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Libya was stable. Syria was under control. The group we know today as ISIS was close to being extinguished. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Now, fast-forward to present time. After Hillary, here is what the world looks like: Iraq is in total chaos. Syria is in the midst of a disastrous civil war and a refugee crisis now threatens Europe and the United States. ISIS has been unleashed onto the entire world. Iran – the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism – has been put on the path to nuclear weapons, and was given a $400 million dollar cash ransom payment.”

“This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and terrorism,” Trump concluded.

Clinton also used her address to criticize Trump for insulting world leaders and suggesting to abandon U.S. allies. “You don’t build a coalition by insulting our friends or acting like a loose cannon. You do it by putting in the slow, hard work of building relationships,” the Democratic presidential nominee said. “Getting countries working together was my job every day as your Secretary of State. It’s more than a photo op. It takes consistency and reliability. Actually, it’s just like building personal relationships. People have got to know that they can count on you – that you won’t say one thing one day and something totally different the next.”

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