They may be hailed as Team Clinton for their international humanitarian efforts, but there was no mistaking who is the official top diplomat in the Clinton household when Hillary reacted angrily to a question about her husband Bill yesterday.

Less than a week after the former US President stole his wife’s thunder by securing the release of two American journalists detained in North Korea, Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, snapped when asked about her husband’s opinion by a university student during her seven-nation African tour.

Mrs Clinton was taking part in a public discussion at a town hall in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa when a student asked what her husband thought about a multibillion-dollar Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks?” an incredulous Mrs Clinton said, before adding sternly: “My husband is not the Secretary of State, I am.”

As the crowd collectively gasped and some began to applaud, Mrs Clinton continued. “You ask my opinion I will tell you my opinion, I’m not going to be channelling my husband,” she said.

Hours after she left Washington for Africa a week ago, news broke that Mr Clinton had gone on a humanitarian mission to North Korea to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two television journalists who had been arrested and sentenced to 12 years hard labour.

Mrs Clinton then arrived in Kenya to find herself peppered with questions about his secret mission.

After the questioning in Kinshasa on Monday Mrs Clinton managed quickly to recover her cool and moved on to other subjects.

Later the student who had asked the question approached the Secretary of State and told her that the question must have been lost in translation as he had meant to ask what President Obama, not Mr Clinton, thought about the Chinese loan. A senior Clinton aide said that Mrs Clinton assured the student that he should not to worry about it.

Since his presidency ended in 2001, Mr Clinton has spoken out about international financial and development aid to poor countries, one focus of his foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative, making his opinion of interest abroad.

On Monday, as his wife continued her African tour, Mr Clinton was in Las Vegas attending the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0, a two-day conference to discuss a domestic policy agenda to advance alternative energy.d

Agencies and A nemdil