Receipt of criticism from abroad is a feature, not a bug, for Democratic presidential candidates.

Yeah, our deals with China are working so well, we are getting so much respect.

And Prof., up to 1/3 of your childrens' toys may be tainted with lead, but heck, trade is always good.

Trade should be expanded, but the one-sided deals will have to stop or there will be more populist backlash.

Yeah, well, in Germany we have the saying "the soup is always eaten colder than it's being cooked".

So I guess it's reasonable to assume that some populistic free-trade bashing in an electoral campaign - while beneficial with some groups now - doesn't matter a lot when it comes to implementing policy one, two, three years from now.

First, Hilary must distinguish herself from the Tom Freidman school of "if its called a free trade agreement, I'll support it." Free trade is good, trade deals are not always reflective of that good, and for democratic voters it is important to show you have this credibility.

Second, WTO officials would have less cause for concern if they had actually wrapped up Doha. But they haven't, and my guess is they won't. So Hilary's potshot will have no effect because she taken aim at something that is already dead.

Bush pushed away the moderate Dems by making it a partisan issue to curry favor with the business community, and the left has gone delusional over trade since Lori Wallach started spreading her lies 15 years ago. If free traders want to have something substantial in the future, they will have to build a coalition from scratch. The only way to do that as a president is to show that you understand the costs, otherwise no one will believe you when you pitch the benefits. Clinton and Obama both understand this. I'm waiting for a republican to say anything about it, but they are apparently too busy firing their immigrant gardners to explain their theory of international trade.

Some of the comments on this thread and others I have seen lately remind me of the oft-repeated great blogospheric debate of the decade's first years -- George W. Bush: Master Geostrategist or Prize Doofus?

Every so often the President would come out with some statement or action radically at variance with the kind of President he had promised to be in the 2000 campaign, or that appeared to contradict a formal statement of his own administration, or that seemed to rely on a logic that was not immediately evident (the designation of an "Axis of Evil," a trio of governments two of which had long records of much greater hostility toward one another than either had for any other country, was one of the latter). The debate in the blogs would commence.

A few people would jump in with straightforward denunciations, and a few more with more analytic posts pointing out the ways in which the President was wrong. This would provoke a response by numerous posters (on sites like Dan's, for example) declaring that Bush understood more deeply than we could see, outlining what was assumed to be his strategic outlook and counterintuitive tactical genius. The Axis of Evil had lots of blogospheric defenders.

Most people can't be national politicians, or aspire to influence national politicians. This creates a powerful temptation to project one's own thinking onto the politician with whom one most sympathizes, either generally or on one particular issue. Bush is not unique in having attributed to him strategic thought and long-range calculation, attributions that could not possibly have been based directly on anything he said or did, but could have flowed quite easily from what his supporters wanted to believe.

So, too, someone like Sen. Clinton appears now to be making protectionist noises to get through the early Democratic primaries, noises she will act on as long as she needs the support of people who oppose trade liberalization. Could she be trying to lay the foundation for trade liberalization later by showing she understands the cost of trade liberalization now? In the abstract, sure. It's not theoretically impossible. Is there any reason to think this is actually what she has in mind? Nope. Not unless one really, really wants to believe it.

Don't forget that Ms. Clinton is still running against George W. Bush for some reason and also that her official campaign song is "Blowin' in the Wind."

Replying to Zathras, you are correct that I cannot read Clinton and Obama's minds as to their true intentions, but I think if you read between the lines and look at their advisors, they both appreciate the merits of free trade. I think there is a distinction between them and Edwards on this. In 1992, BC hedged on Nafta, but if you read between the lines you knew where he was going. I think the same is true for these two.

Setting aside whether I'm right about where she will end up, I think the more important point is that with these statements a move to support free trade is possible. Without these statements a candidate will have no credibility to build a consensus on trade in the future.

It used to be that anti-trade sentiment, like anti-immigrant sentiment rose and fell depending on how robust the economy was. In good times, opposition couldn't get traction. That is no longer true, as anti-trade opinions gathered steam during the boom years of the 90s. Those of us that support free trade need to recognize this erosion in support and realize that support for trade is not the default position. To have the WTO folks peeved and perplexed is a small price to pay for working toward the larger goal. And it will make them appreciate that they have a harder job selling Doha than the last round.