Wary on Trade, Iowa Unions Aren't Ready for Hillary Clinton

At an Altoona forum Thursday afternoon, Iowa labor leaders will interview four Democratic contenders about what they’d do as president. But they won’t be joined by the one they’d most like to cross-examine: front-runner Hillary Clinton, whose equivocal stance on a trade deal they despise and is causing consternation at this year’s Iowa union confab.

“I would have liked her to be more forthright in terms of her opposition to the fast track authority,” says Iowa AFL-CIO President Ken Sagar, who blames “crappy trade deals” for thinning labor’s ranks in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. While telling Bloomberg that “many people are very excited about her candidacy,” Sagar bemoaned Clinton’s refusal to fight the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership. “If you want to be the leader of the free world, why wouldn’t you tell people what your opinion is about issues that are critical to the working people of this country?” he asked. “It doesn’t make sense to me. But hey, I’m just a working guy out here in Iowa.”