Dems on Wrong Side of NAFTA Debate
When it comes to trade policy, argues Ruben Navarrette Jr., Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seem to be all for cowboy diplomacy.
The debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement isn’t just about trade, jobs and the perpetual tug-of-war between business and labor. It’s also about geography. How you feel about NAFTA has a lot to do with where you live.
In the nearly fifteen years since President Bill Clinton signed the treaty, I’ve lived in three states that were NAFTA-friendly — California, Arizona, and Texas. All were full of businesses that did lots of trade with Mexico and Canada and consumers that benefited from having access to new markets and new products.
I’ve never lived in Ohio, which is scheduled to hold its primary on March 4th. But I have visited a number of cities in that state to give speeches. What hits me is that so many residents have surrendered control over their destiny to ominous forces beyond their control. You don’t find much of that out West, where people still believe that their lives are shaped by their own hand.
For people who shrink from competition and think that it’s government’s job to provide and protect — to provide them with well-paying/low-effort jobs and protect the jobs the already have — there is a lot to love in Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, each of whom is barnstorming through Ohio painting the other as someone who condones free trade.
The horror!
Lately, the debate in the Buckeye State has centered on a mailer sent to voters from the Obama campaign, which insists that Clinton was a supporter of NAFTA until she started running for president. Apparently, drawing from Clinton’s public comments, there is evidence to support that.
Clinton claims that she has changed her mind and yet in the same breath insists that she has been consistent and had qualms about NAFTA all along, even back when her husband was lobbying the Senate to ratify the agreement. What she wants now, she says, is to fix the trade pact and she’s willing to play hardball.
During this week’s Democratic debate in Cleveland, which was televised on MSNBC, Clinton offered assurances that — if she is elected president — she’ll threaten Mexico and Canada: Either agree to revisions in the trade deal, or the United States will pull out of the deal. When asked if he would do the same if he were elected president, Obama said yes.
Lovely. That would set a great precedent for all sorts of future agreements that we might sign with other countries, some of which we might actually like the parties to adhere to. Democrats are always saying how, in foreign policy, President Bush has practiced cowboy diplomacy. Well, when it comes to trade policy, what are Democrats proposing but more of the same?
Besides, shouldn’t the liberal position be that free trade is essential to the development of poor countries. Why should the United States — which represents such a small percentage of the world’s population — control so much of its wealth?
Personally, if the idea is to defend free trade, I prefer a different argument — one that I’d love to see Democrats make to crowds in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and other economically challenged “Rust Belt” states but probably never will.
It goes like this: Trade is about competition, and competition is an essential part of life. And it’s not the duty of government to protect you from it by pulling up drawbridges and pulling out of trade deals. We’re a better country than that, and it’s time we started acting like it.
On second thought, that’s a message that shouldn’t be limited by geography. It should be spread around the country, from sea to shining sea.
Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union Tribune, a nationally syndicated columnist, a frequent lecturer and a regular contributor to CNN.com.
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13 Comments
1. Frank:When it comes to trade policy, Navarrette is on the wrong side. Asking Americans to conform to labor laws, safety laws and environmental laws while their competition in Mexico can ignore such restraints is not the way to win friends and influence people.
Mar 1, 2008 - 9:11 am 2. David Thomson:“What hits me is that so many residents have surrendered control over their destiny to ominous forces beyond their control.”
This is what the Democratic Party does to poorly educated people. They ultimately perceive themselves as victims unable to compete in a presumably unfair zero sum universe. Cynically, the “elites” realize that Democrats may win more elections if their “Bubba” voters are encouraged to feel embittered and self pitying.
Mar 1, 2008 - 11:42 am 3. Larry:Let me get this straight. The donx want unlimited numbers of people to be free to enter the country, but no goods. Is that about right?
Mar 1, 2008 - 4:56 pm 4. Dogwood:Keep in mind that a large number of people in the midwest were once union members. The unions are basically socialist organizations that try to protect members from competition and the evil free enterprise system.
If the union can’t protect them, then it is the government’s responsibility to do so.
The whole ideology promoted by unions and their political sycophants for the last 100 years has been one of entitlement and paternalism.
The people have allowed themselves to be brainwashed into complacency and finger pointing. It will take decades for attitudes to change.
Michigan, on the other hand, may never recover.
Mar 1, 2008 - 5:34 pm 5. rosignol:Why should the United States – which represents such a small percentage of the world’s population – control so much of its wealth?
Because we invested a huge amount of time, effort, and money in generating that wealth. It’s ours. We earned it. And we’re happy to have mutually beneficial trade with others. What we aren’t interested in is giving handouts to people who will only ask for more handouts.
Why should people that do not make the effort enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor?
Mar 1, 2008 - 6:03 pm 6. memomachine:Hmmmmm.
I’m a conservative and I have yet to see where the benefit of NAFTA and other such trade agreements is TO *Americans*.
How is it a good thing to move jobs overseas in order to buy cheaper crap here? America is largely a service oriented economy. What nobody has proven, to me or anyone else, is how long a country can have such a non-manufacturing economy.
Frankly I think we’re going to find out in the next couple years.
Mar 1, 2008 - 8:00 pm 7. Heather Noggle:Is NAFTA the hot button just because the average American knows about it? If you remove Mexico from NAFTA, is it still a hot button? To be fair, we do import more from these two countries than we export, but that’s the case with most countries. The US is a heavy importer. Stats here. As you can see, though, it’s also a heavy exporter.
The US also has free trade agreements with a large portion of Central America (CAFTA, which, from memory, covers the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc.). There’s an agreement with Peru in the works. There’s also an agreement with Australia of all places. Oh, and there’s Chile. US – Chile Free Trade Agreement.
hln
Mar 2, 2008 - 5:02 am 8. Skip:While there are things in NAFTA that can stand tweaking, unilateral abandonment isn’t one of them. Canadian small industry paid heavily for NAFTA. Many US suppliers of goods to Canada went from maintaining a Canadian presence to support their sales in Canada, to operating out of the back of a semi. The Canadian Niagara peninsula and the New York Niagara frontier was devastated by NAFTA. It hasn’t recovered, especially the American side. This was due to the practices of American companies, BTW.
Mar 2, 2008 - 6:50 am 9. bour3:The US record on adherence to NAFTA has never been exemplary, in any case. The US already has a history of protectionism in NAFTA.
A key point – pull NAFTA apart, and jobs will flow not only to Mexico, but way offshore in any case. NAFTA keeps some at least in North America.
Prime Minister Harper has already advised Clinton and Obama that unilaterally pulling apart NAFTA may result in the unilateral Canadian review of the US-Canada oil supply deal. Its instructive to remember the oil is on the Canadian side of the border…
Have all the kids in school watch Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose in their classrooms as often as they’ve been made to watch Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
Mar 2, 2008 - 11:01 am 10. Don:Good point: that walking away from NAFTA “would set a great precedent for all sorts of future agreements that we might sign with other countries”. Another point: Canada is the US´s #1 supplier of oil and natural gas, and Mexico, its #2 supplier of oil. Why would anyone, let alone two presidential candidates, threaten to put to risk their most secure energy supply?
Mar 2, 2008 - 3:58 pm 11. David W. Lincoln:Don
It seems not that long ago when Canada and the United States signed the Free Trade Agreement (To give a timeline, Reagan was in the White House, Gorbachev was in the Kremlin, Thatcher was Britain’s Prime Minister and Al Gore was a Senator).
One example of free trade saw a Canadian paint company go out of business. Why? Because it did not spend time modernizing its business so that it could produce as much paint as at least one competitor in the United States.
When that is combined with people who have more confidence in natural phenomena still being in the driver’s seat regarding climate change – if the United States does not want oil from Alberta’s oil sands which has a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, then that oil would be sold to those less fussy about the blather which comes from Al Gore and the rest of the watermelons who are more interested in a command style economy rather than a free market economy.
Trade has increased, and as long as there are a huge swath of Americans who mistakenly conclude that the largest supplier of oil to the United States is Canada – the negligent will be lead down the garden path yet again by the devious.
Mar 2, 2008 - 6:46 pm 12. David W. Lincoln:Whoops, one mistake. It should say: …as long as there is a huge swath of Americans who mistakenly conclude that the largest supplier isn’t Canada – the negligent will be lead down the garden path yet again by the devious.
Mar 3, 2008 - 7:22 am 13. Rick:Part of the NAFTA agreement stipulates that any reduction of oil to the US has to be equaled by a reduction in Canada’s own supply. I don’t think Canada would have made the same deal with China, France or any other trading partner. Just sayin’.
Mar 3, 2008 - 11:51 am