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Where’s Clinton’s leadership on trade?

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Jeff Swensen

With all the attention being paid to the Clinton Foundation, a much bigger and more troubling story about Hillary Clinton is largely being ignored — a dramatic and potentially damaging shift on trade.

Last October, when Clinton signaled her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, the Democratic presidential candidate said that while the version of the TPP negotiated by the Obama administration fell short, she still believed "in the goal of a strong and fair trade agreement in the Pacific as part of a broader strategy both at home and abroad."

But earlier this month Clinton went much further. While saying she wants to "make trade work for us, not against us," she added, "I will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages — including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I oppose it now, I'll oppose it after the election, and I'll oppose it as president."

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While Clinton criticized her GOP opponent Donald Trump for wanting Americans to "hide behind walls" and said that "America isn't afraid to compete" internationally, it's hard to square that kind of language with her Shermanesque opposition to TPP.

It's hard to tell if Clinton's being disingenuous or merely dishonest on TPP. When asked about Clinton's position, a campaign spokesman told me, "She is not interested in tinkering around the margins with TPP." The campaign also flagged a video of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta saying, "We're not about renegotiation" on TPP and that the candidate supports "a new approach" to trade. What's unclear is how Clinton can say she is supportive of free trade, but won't consider a renegotiation of the TPP that satisfies criteria she herself laid out by her in 2015 — namely, to "protect US workers and raise wages" and "strengthen national security."

But by taking what appears to be a strong position against the deal, she is basically counting on President Obama and a lame-duck Congress to get the agreement passed, and hoping that as president she won't have to make a decision either way about TPP. It's a striking lack of leadership — and one that could come to haunt her if Congress does.

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To be sure, members of her own party have helped to paint Clinton into a corner on this issue. At the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, supporters of her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, made opposition to TPP their Rubicon issue — with mindless chants of "no-TPP" heard repeatedly in the convention hall.

But unlike Sanders or Trump, Clinton is not opposed to all trade deals or even the very concept of free trade. As New York senator, she voted for trade agreements with Singapore, Chile, Australia, Morocco, and Oman — and voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (though she backed it as secretary of state).

In her book "Hard Choices,'' she called the TPP a "gold standard in trade agreements" and said the deal would be "important for American workers," but also "a strategic initiative" that would make the United States stronger in the Far East. On more than 40 occasions as America's top diplomat she expressed support for the Asian trade agreement.

She is, more or less, a free trader — and that's what makes her political retreat all the more disappointing. While there are winners and losers from all trade deals, this campaign season has seen far more focus on those hurt by trade than on those helped. Rather than talking about how trade can work for all Americans — something Clinton used to do — she has adopted reflexive, even protectionist language. And by failing to speak up for TPP she has made it more difficult for any agreement to pass — something that could have disastrous consequences.

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The failure to pass TPP will hardly be a boon for workers, both at home or abroad. Asian governments rebuffed by the United States are likely to make their own deals with China — ones that are unlikely to protect labor rights or minimize environmental costs. Such agreements could not only harm American exporters, they could raise the cost of imports to the United States — something for which US consumers will pay a price. From a national security perspective, the failure of TPP would, as Clinton herself has noted, weaken the US position in the Far East and represent a huge win for China and its regional ambitions. Clinton talks regularly about the need to strengthen the social safety net for those hurt by trade agreements. But that can go hand-in-hand with support for free trade. Clinton seems to making it an either/or.

In short, at a time when the free trade consensus is under assault, the voices of those who recognize the benefits of free trade need to be heard — if only to give Americans a broader perspective then they are getting from Trump and Sanders.

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When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 he offered a firm defense of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the general concept of free trade. This year, Hillary Clinton has shown little of the same political courage on trade.


Michael A. Cohen's column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @speechboy71.