There were troubling portents in the way Democrats humbled President Barack Obama last Friday. It is not only that he made a rare visit to Capitol Hill to appeal for Democratic support on his global trade agen-da. Nor that he warned them that a vote against it would be the same as one against him. These were bad enough. Worse is that it was Nancy Pelosi — the Democratic leader, and linchpin of every legislative victory since Mr Obama took office, including healthcare — who put the knife in his back. When your closest ally betrays you, it is time to reach for your Shakespeare.

Mr Obama may have to beg, flatter and cajole his way out of this one. The only way to retrieve his trade agenda — let alone his credibility — will be to reverse last week’s defeat. It has been done before. The best example is Congress’s rejection of the $700bn Wall Street bailout package (the troubled asset relief programme, Tarp) in September 2008. It was reversed 72 hours later. But George W Bush, the then president, could point to a stock market in free fall. The Dow fell almost 1,000 points after the first vote, enough to terrify lawmakers into the Yes camp on the second. Mr Obama has no such prompts. The Dow Jones index dropped 140 points last Friday, which was no more than an average bad day.

Mr Obama badly needs to come up with something in the next few days. The price of failure for him — and the US — is too high. The costs would be threefold. First, rejection of the trade promotion authority (TPA), or fast-track negotiating powers, would leave the US without a global economic strategy in a rapidly changing world. It would kill prospects of wrapping up the Pacific trade deal on which Mr Obama has been working for three years. The 12-member group covers almost 40 per cent of the world economy. It would also halt progress in the parallel transatlantic talks, which cover close to half the global economy.