“President Obama is neither a committed free-trader nor a hard-core protectionist. But his continuing failure to commit to a pro-trade agenda amounts to de facto protectionism and subverts his economic and foreign policy objectives. Reacting recently to a provision in the climate change bill that would impose trade penalties against nations that do not limit carbon emissions enough, the president said, ‘At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals.’ In that mild rebuke of protectionism lingers the essence of the administration’s nascent trade policy: conditional, ambiguous and not particularly reassuring.” (07/24/09