Hillary Clinton's opposition to TPP deal might be just 'talking'

So Hillary Clinton is opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the largest freetrade agreement in the history of the universe, is she?

Perhaps we should take that with a grain of salt.

In fact, we might even put those words in quotation marks because they are exactlyhow her own campaign is said to have described Clinton's last threat to back out of atrade deal: "Take it with a grain of salt."

Or at least that's how the story goes.

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Clinton and her team hotly denied it in the 2008 presidential race and insteadaccused Barack Obama of saying one thing publicly about free trade and anotherprivately.

But those denials never quite explained where the story came from in the first place.

More about that fiasco in a moment, but first let's put Clinton's latest trade talk intoits proper context.

As secretary of state, she had intimate knowledge of the TPP negotiations availableto her from the very beginning of the talks and for some years afterward.

Based on that, she claimed, approvingly, that the TPP would be an essential part ofthe Obama administration's foreign policy "tilt" to the Pacific.

She boasted it would be the "gold standard" by which all future trade agreementswill be measured.

She and others around her have promoted TPP as not only the biggest and mostambitious open trade zone in the world, but also as a rare foreign policy feather inthe cap of the Obama administration.

And now she's decided to trash-talk it and, in the process, double-cross the presidentshe served for four years.

Obama is already out on a limb with Democrats in Congress. They tried tosabotage the president's efforts to bring the trade deal to them for a straight "yes orno" vote earlier this year. That forced him to work with Republicans instead.

So none of this bodes well for the TPP.

But why is Clinton suddenly piling on?

It turns out TPP isn't such a good fit for Clinton at the moment. She's in aTuesday frame of mind.

Debatable support

Tuesday is the first debate in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and many Democrats have been unexpectedly flirting with the most unusualcandidate in that race: a 74-year-old,self-described socialist, Senator BernieSanders from Vermont.

Sanders is a passionate and articulate opponent of the TPP. So is former Marylandgovernor Martin O'Malley, who is also running.

Clinton didn't expect such a vigorous challenge and the trade deal is a big part of it.

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She could try to adopt a nuanced position on trade, as her husband did in the 1992campaign when he declared the North America Free Trade Agreement needed"fixing" not "reopening."

But America still isn't sure it wants free trade with Canada, never mind withlow-wage countries halfway around the world.

So a nuanced TPP position is trickier for this Clinton. Easier to be against it for now.

Her statement says she is opposing TPP "based on what I know so far."

So she's left herself wiggle room for another flip-flop down the road if and when thecoast is clear.

But maybe she's just "talking" in the way politicians sometimes do when thesituation calls for something just short of honesty and clarity.

He said she said

Which brings us back to the 2008 fiasco that caused a minor diplomatic incidentbetween the government of Canada and the two Democrats running for president atthe time.

Clinton was desperate to match Obama's appeal to Ohio primary voters whofelt NAFTA had been a bad deal for their state.

"I will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiate it!" she said during a debate.

That was a fairly unequivocal promise and so naturally it caught the attention of theother NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico. There were concerns.

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Those concerns became a matter of intrigue when reporters in Ottawa found anunexpected opportunity to probe the prime minister's chief of staff about them.

The normally taciturn Ian Brodiehad wandered into a conversation about the U.Selection, and when the reporters asked about Clinton's threat to opt out of NAFTA,he casually blurted out this:"Someone from Clinton's campaign is telling us to take it with a grain of salt. Thatsomeone called us and told us not to worry."

Brodie later claimed not to remember the conversation.

The initial reporting was confused about whether it was the Obama's campaignor Clinton's orboth apparently saying one thing publicly to America and another thingprivately to the government of Canada, but the story landed with a loud thud inboth countries.

The result was diplomatically awkward. There was some back and forth on thecampaign trail between the two Democratic teams and denials from everyone saidto be involved from Washington to Ottawa.An investigation exonerated everyoneon the Canadian side.

Clinton's comments this week have surely been noticed from Lima to Hanoi toCanberra. The other partners in TPP would probably like some reassurance thatthey'll eventually get what they bargained for in the deal.

Maybe they're expecting a private reassurance.

Who knows, maybe they'll get one?

But what would that be worth thesedays?

American politics is in a strange way at the moment.Exotic candidates are buffetingthe establishments of both parties.

Sanders is not the only one enjoying his moment.

We haven't even mentioned Donald Trump's views on trade deals.