Democrats fighting both for and against President Obama’s trade agenda are giving Hillary Clinton a pass on the issue of Trade Promotion Authority, saying the frontrunner for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination does not have to stake out a position on the controversial topic.
The former secretary of state has not publicly spoken on whether she supports TPA, also known as “Fast Track,” legislation that would prevent Congress from amending trade deals, limiting them to a simple up or down vote. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., co-author of a bipartisan version of the legislation introduced Thursday, did not call on her to clarify her position during a press conference Friday morning.
“Senator Clinton has been a candidate now, we’re on Friday, for five days, okay? My own judgment is that she is off to a strong start,” Wyden said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor in response to a question from the Washington Examiner. He added, “Senator Clinton often asked my opinion with respect to intelligence matters when she was in the Senate and I’ll leave it at that.”
Asked if he meant that he was not calling on Clinton to clarify her stance, Wyden responded, “She’s been a candidate for five days.”
Democrats opposed to Fast Track have similarly declined to call on Clinton to address the issue.
During a conference call with reporters Thursday, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-N.Y., one of the leading critics of Fast Track, said that — given the presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign rhetoric on income equality — she expected Clinton would come out against the bill eventually. “I am optimistic that she will come down on the right side of this issue,” DeLauro said.
Pressed on the issue, DeLauro declined to call on Clinton to clarify her stance. “I just believe that she will come down on the right side of it. You know, this has been an individual who has never been fearful of standing up for what she believes in,” DeLauro said.
Fast Track is extremely controversial among some on the economic left, particularly environmentalists and organized labor groups. Many of them blasted Wyden’s legislation in statements Thursday. DeLauro said she believed there was enough opposition in Congress to derail Fast Track.
Clinton’s position on Fast Track is a matter of much speculation. As a New York senator, she voted against legislation to renew Fast Track authority in 2002. However, her husband Bill Clinton used the authority he had as president under Fast Track to help pass the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement in 1994.
She served as secretary of state under President Obama, during which she supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-Pacific-Rim-nation trade deal the administration is expected to send to Congress for a vote later this year.
“Our hope is that a TPP agreement with high standards can serve as a benchmark for future agreements — and grow to serve as a platform for broader regional interaction and eventually a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific,” Clinton wrote in a 2011 article for the magazine Foreign Policy.
Obama wants Congress to renew Fast Track first though. Each president since Gerald Ford has had a version of it but the last one expired in 2007. Fast Track’s passage is widely seen as crucial to the trade deal. Without it, the administration fears the deal will be picked apart by lawmakers.
Coming out in opposition of Fast Track would put Clinton at odds with the both administration she served in as first lady and the one where she served as the top official on international relations. Supporting Fast Track would put her at odds with much of the party’s base as she tries to lock down the party’s presidential nomination with a minimum of drama.
UPDATE: Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a staunch critic of Fast Track, has called on Clinton to clarify her stance, according to a report Thursday in the New York Times. Others believe she will be forced into doing it now that Congress is debating legislation.
“If the debate on fast track lasts a month — and it may in the Senate — then I don’t think she’ll be able to avoid taking a stand… If you are going to be the champion of everyday people, you have to stand up on causes that they believe in,” said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future.
