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Obama: maybe NAFTA isn't so bad after all
Nina Easton, Fortune magazineIn an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine's upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn't want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA. 'Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,' he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA 'devastating' and 'a big mistake,' despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy. . . . Obama's tone stands in marked contrast to his primary campaign's anti-NAFTA fusillades. The pact creating a North American free-trade zone was President Bill Clinton's signature accomplishment; but NAFTA is also the bugaboo of union leaders, grassroots activists and Midwesterners who blame free trade for the factory closings they see in their hometowns. . . . In February, as the campaign moved into the Rust Belt, both candidates vowed to invoke a six-month opt-out clause ('as a hammer,' in Obama's words) to pressure Canada and Mexico to make concessions. . . . 'Cept he really didn't really mean it even then. Now, however, Obama says he doesn't believe in unilaterally reopening NAFTA.
Posted by: Mike 2008-06-19 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=242130 |