The US Senate did what was expected on Wednesday in confirming Michael Froman as the next US trade representative. With only four senators against and 93 in favour, it was unusually smooth by Capitol Hill’s standards. And rightly so. As a veteran of the Obama and Clinton administrations Mr Froman is well known to counterparts and has the ear of the Oval Office. And for the first time in years, Washington is pursuing a big trade agenda both in the Asia Pacific and across the Atlantic. It will be a far tougher battle to convince Congress to pass fast-track negotiating authority – an essential tool since Congress guarantees an “up or down” vote on any deal. Passing it should be a priority. Having so strongly endorsed Mr Froman, it would be a travesty were Congress to send him half-naked into the negotiating chamber.

The strongest objections to renewing fast-track, which elapsed in 2007, come from the left of the Democratic party. In opposing Mr Froman for the job, Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator, called for the declassification of documents from any US trade talks, including those in the Transpacific partnership (TPP), which are gathering pace, and the Transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), which are about to start. She also blamed globalisation and the impact of trade deals, such as Nafta, for the hollowing out of the US middle class. On both counts, Ms Warren is misguided. Transparency is usually a good thing. But it is impossible to negotiate well under the klieg lights. Confidentiality builds trust. By linking secretive trade negotiations to the recent scandal over the National Security Agency, Ms Warren is implicitly signalling she will play hardball on “trade promotion authority”. Given the Senate’s filibuster rule, a small group of opponents could effectively kill it.

Equally serious is the tendency to blame trade for the woes of the US middle classes. American median income has fallen sharply over the past 12 years. But the US decline is much sharper than that experienced by more trade-penetrated economies in Europe and Asia. Democrats are right to worry about the health of the US labour market. But they should not scapegoat trade for a problem with multiple causes, including widening US income inequality and an education system that is turning out too many with outdated skills. Democrats need to shake off this habit of blaming globalisation for the challenges facing the US middle class. And Mr Obama needs to be far more vocal in its defence.