Reply #15: another article showing Obama's fake attacks on NAFTA [View All]

[amborin]

The New York Times

February 28, 2008 Thursday
Late Edition - Final

Despite Nafta Attacks, Clinton and Obama Enhanced Coverage LinkingClinton and Obama Haven't Been Free Trade Foes

BYLINE: By MICHAEL LUO; Patrick Healy contributed reporting.

As they have tussled for votes in economically beleaguered Ohio, Senators Barack Obama
have both excoriated the North American Free Trade Agreement while lobbing accusations against their opponent on the issue.

Lost amid the posturing, however, is that both have staked out nuanced positions in the past on Nafta and have supported similar trade deals. Although their language has become much more hostile to free trade as they have exchanged charges and countercharges, neither of them would have been mistaken in the past for an ardent protectionist or a die-hard free trader.

Instead, both appear to have been part of the conflicted middle ground within the Democratic Party that is groping for a proper balance between being friendly to free trade agreements, believing they are beneficial to the economy, but also seeking to level the playing field for the United States when it comes to labor and environmental standards and addressing job losses that come with globalization.

''The bottom line,'' said Lori Wallach, director of the Global Trade Watch division of Public Citizen and a fierce free trade foe, ''is neither of the current Democratic candidates were in the category of leaders fighting for improving U.S. trade policy to try to come up with different terms for globalization, but in the course of their campaign they have come to see both the political necessity and the substantive problems, pushing them to some interesting new thinking.''

There is clearly a large dose of politics behind the vigor with which the Democratic contenders are attacking each other on Nafta, full of parsed quotations and misrepresentations. Mr. Obama has accused Mrs. Clinton of full-throated support for Nafta in the past, while Mrs. Clinton has leveled the same charge against Mr. Obama.

In the minds of hard-core opponents of free trade, both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have checkered records in the Senate on trade agreements. Both voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement but supported a trade pact with Peru last year, citing the inclusion of labor and environmental provisions that were not part of Nafta.

Opponents, however, said crucial provisions in Nafta that led to jobs being shipped overseas were also part of the Peru agreement. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama were also among only a dozen Senate Democrats who voted for a trade agreement with Oman in 2006.

''They're hedging their bets,'' said Representative Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat whose district in the northern part of the state has been decimated by job losses. ''They're trying to have it both ways, and you can't.''