A.B. Stoddard: Hillary can’t win on trade

Hillary Clinton clearly isn’t bothered by the exhortations of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), but President Obama is — and the longer Obama indulges Clinton’s silence on trade, the more the presumed Democratic nominee for 2016 exacerbates her party’s food fight over the issue and, in Boehner’s view, embarrasses the president she served.

Perhaps the apocalypse is imminent, because Obama is working with Republican leaders on a major legacy push: passage of trade promotion authority, also known as fast-track, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). As crunch time nears, Boehner says the president “needs her [Clinton’s] help” to grow a weak Democratic vote, now estimated at fewer than 20 members. Obama has shown an uncharacteristic interest in trying to sway hesitant Democrats in Congress to vote in favor of the trade deal, with promises to protect them against any political backlash. 

{mosads}As secretary of State, Clinton supported the pact as a foreign policy tool in the U.S. pivot toward Asia, once characterizing the TPP as the “gold standard” of trade agreements. Now that she is running for the presidency, she is hedging, trying to buy time with anti-trade liberals in her party. Clinton, the Speaker suggested this week, should get off the sidelines and stop letting “the president swing in the wind.” 

The deal is opposed by most Democrats in Congress, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whom Clinton wants to stop from entering the presidential race at the urging of progressive Democrats. The labor movement, which Democrats count on to get out the vote in presidential elections, has been disappointed by Clinton’s continued silence on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which unions support but environmentalists oppose, and is urging her to come out against both fast-track and the TPP.

Boehner has reminded Clinton, in his comments, that every president has had this authority for the last 50 years. By opposing TPP she would deny it not only to Obama but — should she get elected president — to herself. Clinton has delivered generic platitudes about workers’ rights, currency manipulation, competitiveness, the environment and transparency, but she and her campaign have consistently refused a real answer. 

Boehner and the Obama administration think they know what it is, though, and sound as if they are counting on her support. On “Meet The Press” this week, Boehner said “Hillary Clinton is for the trade bill with the Asians; she just won’t say so.” White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz also dismissed Clinton’s nebulous statements, saying: “I haven’t seen anything to suggest any distance.”

Clinton, of course, said she needs to see the deal before deciding. Liberals are complaining that the details of the proposed deal are only explained in secret briefings without aides or phones and cannot be discussed. But that’s not Clinton’s excuse. She not only has better access through her allies and guardians in the Obama administration — those who have categorically defended her tenure at the State Department working under her own set of rules and are desperate for her to back the president on the TPP — she already knows the pact well.

The answer of whether she has changed her mind or is merely delaying the ire from liberals like Warren and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is running against her for president, cannot be deleted from the server. Neither is good — it is either the answer that angers the left, or she is flip-flopping big time.

Clinton told voters in her announcement video that everyday Americans need a champion and she wants “to be that champion.” In the weeks since then, not answering questions, she has been trying to decide what it is she will champion.

Obama said Warren is “wrong” on the TPP deal, adding, “when people say this trade deal is bad for working families, they don’t know what they are talking about.” He hopes he won’t have to say the same thing soon about Clinton.

Stoddard is an associate editor of The Hill.