Blowback from Dem NAFTA threats

Globe and Mail:

Americans' privileged access to Canada's massive oil and gas reserves could be disrupted if Washington cancels the NAFTA accord as Democratic presidential candidates threaten, Canadian Trade Minister David Emerson warned yesterday.

"There's no doubt if NAFTA were to be reopened we would want to have our list of priorities," he said.

"Knowledgeable observers would have to take note of the fact that we are the largest supplier of energy to the United States, and NAFTA has been kind of a foundation of integrating the North American energy market," Mr. Emerson said.

"When people get below the rhetoric and start picking away at the details, you are going to find that it's not such a slam-dunk proposition to go from the rhetoric to a meaningful improvement," he said.

Canada and the United States have free trade in energy because the accord effectively prohibits discriminatory export controls on oil and gas. Mr. Emerson's comments come after Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton promised Tuesday to withdraw the United States from the North American free-trade agreement after taking office, unless the deal was completely renegotiated.

The pact has become a target for criticism by U.S. unions, which blame it for the disappearance of thousands of jobs, but studies have repeatedly shown that trade has thrived and all three NAFTA signatories have benefited since the deal took effect in 1994.

But Mr. Obama's rhetoric on the subject may be just that, CTV News reported last night. Citing Canadian sources, the network said that a senior member of Mr. Obama's campaign team called Canada's U.S. ambassador, Michael Wilson, within the past month, warning him that Mr. Obama would be taking some "heavy swings" at NAFTA in the campaign.

"Don't worry, ... it's just campaign rhetoric, ... it's not serious," CTV reported the campaign official as saying.

Late last night, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign said the staff member's warning to Mr. Wilson sounded implausible, but did not deny that contact had been made. "Senator Obama does not make promises he doesn't intend to keep," the spokesperson told CTV.

Mr. Emerson called the Democratic candidates' NAFTA vow political posturing aimed at party voters, predicting it would fade from sight if either wins the presidency.

But he said he's nevertheless worried about a rising tide of protectionism in the United States. "It's been getting more strident; it's permeating congress ... and it's not just the heat of the presidential campaign that is causing concern, it's the whole congressional system."

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There is more. Hat tip to Gateway Pundit and Larwin.

The Unions are determined to screw up trade agreements that benefit the whole in order to pursue their special interest. For some reason Obama does not see the labor bosses as special interest. He does not even think they are lobbiest, since he never includes them in his demagoguery about lobbiest in Washington.

What is absurd about the NAFTA slander is makes no sense in terms of the overall economy and job figures. Since NAFTA was passed, unemployment has significantly decreased and overall family income has increased. Opponents of NAFTA said the opposite would happen and they were dead wrong. Now they hang their hat on dubious claims that some jobs were lost to NAFTA, but when you put it in the context of the overall economy the increase in jobs is inarguable and many of them are attributable to NAFTA.