As you read this, it’ll be right around the first hundred days of Barack Obama’s presidency and the collective media talking heads are sure to be in full-gale Category 5 ‘bloviation.’ With a scant few exceptions, I’d suggest you discount most of what you hear-such is my sad disrespect for the rush to judgment that passes for political wisdom these days. 

Having made this professional disclaimer, though, I can’t resist the occasion to comment with respect to trade.

The Big Idea to take-away here is that, as yet, we really know very little about the administration’s free trade agenda. For the most part, the subject has been pretty much off the screen, certainly at the level of high profile Presidential proclamation. 

The Bush administration struck a stance quite early on that it would be pro-trade. No real surprise, it was a position consistent with the interests of their business constituency and supported by organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers.  

Obama’s tougher to read. On the campaign, he struck a pretty tough ‘America First’ stance. His tepid support of NAFTA, for example, was calculated to pander to disgruntled voters in the Rust Belt. In one standard stump riff he’d call for tougher labor and environmental protections in trade agreements.

As President, however, he’s turned down the volume, acknowledging that his campaign rhetoric was “overheated and amplified.”  But, it’s worth noting that the administration acquiesced without rebuttal to the Buy America clause in the stimulus package and-even more tellingly-terminated the test trial to give certified Mexican trucks cross-border access. (In retaliation, Mexico imposed two-and-a-half billion dollars of tariffs on U.S. goods.) His support of carbon cap-and-trade, while enlightened from an environmental perspective, threatens to put U.S. traders at a disadvantage and trigger disputes if other countries don’t impose comparable costs on their manufacturers.

Again, there are obvious political connections here. Organized labor-no friend of trade-helped elect Obama. Now it’s time for payback and atop the agenda of unions like the AFL-CIO or Teamsters are protectionist measures intended to ‘save’ jobs for their members.

It is not yet clear whether we’re seeing the emergence of a concerted administration position on free trade or only random responses. In back-channel conversations with Mexican and Canadian counterparts, for example, U.S. officials have reputedly taken pains to reaffirm Obama’s support for NAFTA and commitment to not re-open it. 

But, there are disconcerting indications that the President’s heart isn’t in free trade. While I’ve got to believe that Obama is far too smart a guy to not intellectually appreciate that trade is how you generate the optimal pool of goods and services (and thereby elevate the aggregate worldwide standard of living), he may lack the political will to push forward aggressively.

According to D.C. gossip, Obama’s first choice to be the U.S. Trade Rep turned the job down because trade issues were going to be low priority; the person who did accept the job, Ron Kirk, a Texas lawyer and the first African-American Mayor of Dallas, has no obvious trade connection (or credentials).

More’s the pity if this administration bails out on trade expansion, particularly at this moment with the global economy precariously tottering on the edge... of who knows what? Because, as with so much else, when it comes to trade expansion, it probably isn’t going to happen if the U.S. doesn’t lead.