Clinton more cautious on trade as candidate than as diplomat - Tribune-Review

WASHINGTON — As secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton called the Trans-Pacific Partnership the “gold standard” in efforts to establish open and fair trade.

As a presidential candidate, she's struck a far more cautious tone on that emerging agreement: non-committal with a strong hint of skepticism.

The 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership under negotiation by President Obama has divided the Democratic Party, leaving Clinton caught between liberal activists and the president she once served.

Potential Democratic rivals are pressing Clinton to take a firmer stance against the deal. Her positions on trade agreements have fluctuated with the political calendar over the years.

As first lady, for example, she trumpeted the North American trade deal brokered by husband Bill Clinton but said in her first presidential campaign in 2007 that it was “a mistake.”

Meanwhile, a cache of Clinton emails expected to be made public soon contains no support for Republican accusations that Clinton was involved in efforts to downplay the role of Islamic militants in the deadly 2012 attacks on U.S. installations in Benghazi, Libya, people familiar with the emails said.

Two people familiar with the material said this week that the 300 emails do not demonstrate that Clinton, who was secretary of State at the time of the attacks, was personally involved in decisions that resulted in weak security at the Benghazi outposts.

This week or next, the State Department is expected to make public Clinton emails about Benghazi that it turned over in February to a Republican-led panel investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks at the U.S. diplomatic mission and a nearby CIA base. U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attacks.

Most of the emails were sent from Clinton's Blackberry and were cryptic, with few running longer than three or four sentences, said the sources, who requested anonymity.

Some showed Clinton exchanging correspondence with other State Department officials regarding security for a Libyan election that took place in June 2012. But there was no evidence Clinton held detailed discussions about security at U.S. installations in Benghazi in the months before the attacks, the sources said.

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