WASHINGTON — Campaigning across Pennsylvania and other sections of the Rust Belt in recent months, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has stressed her determination to put a hold on trade agreements, which she says are costing American jobs.
And last weekend, she demoted her chief campaign strategist after news reports that he did private lobbying work on behalf of a free trade pact with Colombia that Clinton opposes.
Yet Clinton's voting record in the Senate only hints at the skepticism about international trade deals that she recently has made a cornerstone of her presidential campaign.
Since 2001, Clinton has backed pacts with Jordan, Chile, Singapore, Australia, Morocco and Oman that were opposed by numerous labor, farming and environmental groups concerned that the deals contained insufficient safeguards for American workers and consumers.
As recently as November, Clinton supported a free trade agreement negotiated by the Bush administration with Peru.
Clinton's more recent critiques have cheered many trade critics, who long have complained that the pacts encourage companies to move jobs overseas.
But Clinton's campaign posture also has raised a few eyebrows. Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division, a leading opponent of the structure of current trade agreements, said the New York senator apparently had shifted after getting "a lot of feedback from people across the country."
Clinton's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, also has backed bilateral trade agreements since he came to the Senate in 2005, and like Clinton has stepped up his criticism of trade deals more recently. Unlike her, he has not urged a trade deal moratorium.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain of Arizona has backed every major piece of trade legislation since 2001.
Clinton campaign officials this week defended her record, noting that Clinton's support for individual agreements and for a sweeping moratorium were both based on careful analysis.
"The approach she has taken is completely consistent," said Brian Deese, the campaign's economic policy director. "She is not opposed to trade deals per se. . . . Her posture is and has been that we need to look really closely."
