It’s Fine that Hillary Won’t Say What She Thinks about Obama’s Trade Deal — This Is the Question She Needs to Answer Instead

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign continues to be almost devoid of substance, and her interactions with the media entirely so — but this is partly because she isn’t being pressed on the right questions. When the dam finally broke this week and she let a reporter ask her what she thought of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal President Obama is currently negotiating, she said, “I have said I want to judge the final agreement. I have been for trade agreements, I have been against trade agreements.”

Far as I know, Hillary has never actually been against a trade agreement, but otherwise this is a reasonable position — even if you are passionately in favor of free trade, there is a chance you could oppose TPP anyway. The deal isn’t finalized and much of it hasn’t been made public, so reserving comment is not unreasonable. 

But the key policy question before Congress today is not whether or not to approve the deal, it’s whether to grant President Obama “trade promotion authority” to negotiate it, which would enable him to bring a draft deal to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Ardent anti-traders such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders oppose giving him that authority; some Republicans do too.

That is the question Hillary Clinton ought to be answering, and hasn’t: Does she support giving Obama fast-track authority?

I reached out to her campaign for comment (stop laughing); I haven’t heard back. As I noted a few weeks ago, her comments so far on trade have been pablum. Being for or against fast-track — a question on which most Republican candidates have staked out a position — would give us a sense of how much value she places on free trade, even though Congress would still vote on any deal. Naturally, she has chosen evasion instead.