"It's a rape of our country," Donald Trump said at a rally Tuesday. | Getty Trump calls trade deal 'a rape of our country'

Donald Trump eviscerated the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a speech, repeatedly calling it “a continuing rape of our country.”

Speaking Tuesday at a campaign rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee made his sharpest remarks yet about the Obama administration’s as-yet unratified trade deal, calling it a “disaster” and a “rape” of the American people.


“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country,” Trump said. “That’s what it is, too. It’s a harsh word: It’s a rape of our country.”

He then linked the deal to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, citing her support for it as secretary of state.

“This is done by wealthy people that want to take advantage of us and that want to assign another partnership. So Hillary Clinton, not so long ago, said this was the gold standard of trade pacts,” Trump said. “The gold standard.”

Clinton’s “gold standard” comments date to November 2012, when as secretary of state she touted the proposed deal during a diplomatic trip to Australia.

“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.

Last fall, however, days prior to a Democratic presidential primary debate against against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton came out against the TPP, saying that once it was negotiated it “didn’t meet [her] standards.”

Trump took credit for Clinton’s policy reversal in his Ohio speech, saying she was “shamed into” rejecting it by him.

Trump’s highly charged comments come on the heels of a major policy speech on Tuesday in which he scorned the Republican Party’s traditional position in favor of trade deals and doubled down on his combative economic populism and protectionism while decrying the spread of globalism.

“This wave of globalization has wiped out totally, totally our middle class," said Trump at a plant south of Pittsburgh that provides aluminum scrap and other raw materials to the aluminum and steel industries. "It doesn't have to be this way. We can turn it around and we can turn it around fast."

During the speech, Trump promised to withdraw the United States from the TPP if Congress ratifies the deal, a sentiment he echoed at his Ohio rally Tuesday night.

Trump's remarks earlier on Tuesday drew a swift rebuke from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which fired off a rapid succession of tweets defending free trade as good for American workers.

"Under Trump's trade plans, we would see higher prices, fewer jobs, and a weaker economy," one tweet read, while another said that Trump's threatened tariffs on imports "would strip us of at least 3.5 million jobs."