THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION : Clinton Agonizes Over Filling Key Trade Post : Policy: The President-elect’s choice will be a signal of where he intends to go with free trade and GATT talks--and how quickly.

Glaring in its absence from last week’s naming of President-elect Bill Clinton’s economic policy team was a candidate for the critical job of U.S. trade representative.

Clinton apparently is having trouble deciding not only whom he wants to fill the post, but what he wants to do about two key ongoing trade negotiations that are tantalizingly close to completion: the free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada and the 108-nation Uruguay Round of trade talks.

Clinton’s choice for trade representative will be a signal of where he intends to go with these talks--and how quickly.

It also will reveal much about how Clinton intends to approach the delicate question of America’s economic relationship with Japan.

Democratic Party Chairman Ronald H. Brown was an early favorite for the job, sources said, but instead asked for and was given the Commerce Department, a more visible and perk-laden post.

Remaining candidates for the job include Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees international trade; Clyde V. Prestowitz, a former senior Commerce Department official; Paula Stern, the former International Trade Commission chair who has lobbied for Japanese and European business concerns; Alan Wolff, a lawyer who served as a senior official at the trade representative’s office; Clinton foreign policy adviser Samuel Berger and investment banker Robert D. Hormats.

Because the dispute between free traders and those who support a tougher trade stance has become so polarized, each candidate comes with established enemies.

For example, a particularly spiteful fight has broken out between supporters of Stern and Wolff, complete with anonymous attack faxes and distortions of the two candidates’ positions on the debate over free trade and protectionism.

Although the post holds ambassadorial and not Cabinet rank (the U.S. trade representative’s office is technically part of the White House), the person holding the job will be in a pivotal position to formulate U.S. trade policy and negotiate far-reaching international agreements.

Bickering among the contenders and their backers may be one reason for Clinton’s delay in filling the post--although Clinton aides contend it is simply the mechanics of interviews and background checks that dictate the timing of appointments. The delay itself, however, is fueling misgivings.

“I find it strange that in advance of his economic summit that Clinton has failed to make this appointment,” said Kevin Kearns, an international trade expert in Washington. “One would think that the U.S. trade position and exports would figure prominently in any strategy to revitalize this country’s economy.

Kearns and others said Prestowitz has emerged in recent days as a leading candidate for the post, despite a reputation as a hard-liner on trade with Japan. Prestowitz, a Republican who served at the Commerce Department in the Reagan Administration, is an advocate of “managed trade” with America’s partners, meaning protection of domestic industries harmed by unfair foreign trading practices and demands for equal access to overseas markets.

But one Senate aide who tracks trade said Monday that Prestowitz is “a fantasy” because of his long record of controversial views.

There was a brief flurry of speculation that Baucus, a Democratic senator from Montana, was in line for the job. Baucus is one of the Senate’s most knowledgeable members on trade issues and as chairman of the international trade subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee has worked closely with Treasury Secretary-designate Lloyd Bentsen.

Among the long shots are Berger, who is coordinating the search for a foreign policy team for Clinton, and Hormats, who works for the investment firm Goldman, Sachs.