Obama’s Risky Anti-NAFTA Posturing
"Though Obama's other economic proposals are excellent, even visionary," writes Nic Duquette, his anti-NAFTA posturing is a "foray into folk economics that has gotten him a lot of press, because it's what his target audience wants to hear."
Barack Obama came to town on Monday, bringing 11,000 people into the arena of Wright State University and snarling traffic near my apartment. Dayton, Ohio, has seen a lot of the Clintons lately; I am hard pressed to think of a copy of the Dayton Daily News I’ve read in the past two weeks that didn’t give five column inches or so on the front page to an appearance Hillary, Bill, or Chelsea made or intended to make. But Obama managed to capture the three center columns of the DDN’s front in their entirety with his rally. The headline? “Obama says he’ll push to improve job scene.” And under the photo: “Democratic presidential hopeful addresses Ohio’s lost jobs, Clinton’s comments on his NAFTA position.”
Ohio wants jobs, and it’s not sure where to get them. Politicians everywhere love to advertise job creation as a feature of new programs, but Ohio seems especially credulous toward these claims. The governor’s initiative to issue $1.7 billion in state bonds to fund an omnibus bill for green subsidies, infrastructure maintenance, higher education, medical research, and pollution abatement — among other things — appears to contravene a clause of the Ohio constitution prohibiting government ownership of corporate shares. But billed as the Building Ohio Jobs plan, the plan is also to create 80,000 jobs. I will be surprised if it does not pass.
Given the Ohio economic psyche, then, it was shrewd of Barack Obama to position himself as the anti-NAFTA candidate in his Virginia victory speech, just as Ohio at large started to pay close attention. Foreign trade is not the main driver of job loss in the Rust Belt; technological improvements make it possible to make more products with less labor than ever before, and the invention of interstate highways and air conditioning make it practical to build factories away from northern lakes, rivers and canals.
Nevertheless, in Virginia Obama lambasted “trade deals like NAFTA [that] ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart.” The next week, “In the last year alone, 93 plants have closed in Ohio… And yet, year after year, politicians in Washington sign trade agreements that are riddled with perks for big corporations but have absolutely no protections for American workers.” The week after that, Obama conceded that NAFTA’s repeal was not “realistic,” cited a 2004 remark of Clinton’s praising NAFTA as good “on balance,” then declared, “One million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio. And yet, 10 years after NAFTA passed, Sen. Clinton said it was good for America. Well, I don’t think NAFTA has been good for America — and I never have.”
It’s pandering, but what gorgeously strategic pandering. Either Hillary Clinton distances herself from Bill Clinton’s achievements — undermining her claims of experience as First Lady — or she embraces a treaty that is still unpopular with blue-collar Democrats, her base. Clinton was associated with an economic boom her husband didn’t cause; now she is associated with a trade agreement he didn’t negotiate. Next week, she will lose the primary here.
Obama has proposed a muddle of reforms to induce corporations to site jobs in the USA, which if implemented would require a complicated new regulatory body (bad), prompt more international holding company reorganization than actual job-motion (neutral) and eviscerate the USA’s tottering corporate tax system (probably good). If the electorate holds him to his promises, President Obama might pass a really weird bill come 2009, frittering away his post-partisan economic cred. It might resemble the time in 2002 the current, pro-business president passed an embarrassing tariff on steel imports, only to be slapped down by the WTO.
That’s okay. Undemocratic institutions make good whipping boys for policies democracies can’t enact on their own. Low tariffs, open markets, and peace are good for almost everybody; but someone always stands to gain by convincing the electorate it isn’t so. Elected officials can pass bad protectionist laws, then blame the World Trade Organization when they retract them, providing all the political capital of protectionism without the economic havoc of actually having it. Central banks are only effective in countries where they are politically independent. The United Nations absorbs saber-rattling so well because it’s a bureaucratic tar pit; were it less dysfunctional, it wouldn’t dampen international relations nearly so well.
I therefore suspect Obama is proposing actions he knows he will be prevented from taking. Furthermore, I doubt he believes in his proposals’ wisdom. Obama has a professional association with many of the nation’s foremost economists at the University of Chicago; many are his advisers; none would call his trade proposals a good idea. This is a risk. Obama has an image that is not just post-racial and post-partisan; it’s post-bullshit. Yet he can’t possibly think his plan is feasible or smart.
Sadly, though Obama’s other economic proposals are excellent, even visionary, it is this foray into folk economics that has gotten him a lot of press, because it’s what his target audience wants to hear: three columns wide on the front page of the Dayton Daily News, NAFTA Is Bad. But it’s hard for me to blame the candidate or the state. Ohio just wants a job; that’s what Barack Obama wants, too.
Nic Duquette is a writer living in Ohio. He previously worked for the FED in Boston.
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6 Comments
1. David W. Lincoln:Here is an exhibit of why mistrust, indeed distrust, of the United States takes place.
Talk like this is reminiscient of East European countries meeting when Gorbachev was under house arrest in August, 1991. Walesa, Havel, and the rest of the newly liberated countries met to consider their options.
Abuse of power is abuse of power. Canada can sell what it sells to countries other than the United States. Oil for instance.
Feb 27, 2008 - 3:20 pm 2. Tom W.:“Sadly, though Obama’s other economic proposals are excellent, even visionary…”
Visionary like George McGovern’s proposals.
Here’s my visonary economic proposal: All you wealthy leftists bitching that taxes aren’t high enough? Donate all your money to the IRS.
Who’s stopping you? Who’s stopping Obama and his lovely wife, Hillary and Bill, George Clooney, George Soros, Warren Buffet, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Madonna, Bono, Noam Chomsky, and all the other stinking hypocrites from handing their millions and billions over to the government?
The answer, of course, is that they will never in a zillion years make any personal sacrifices whatsoever to help the poor they pretend to care about.
Visionary, my foot. He’s a blast from the past, a socialist geezer in a new wrapper.
Once people realize how much he intends to steal from us and how quickly he intends to surrender to jihadist savages, he’ll be toast.
Feb 27, 2008 - 5:42 pm 3. David Thomson:“Obama has a professional association with many of the nation’s foremost economists at the University of Chicago”
Barack Obama is obviously lying to somebody. Is it the yuppie economists associated with the University of Chicago or the blue-collar bubbas who perhaps didn’t even finish high school? Who is being played for a sucker? Obama talks a lot about change. I think it is time that a few questions are presented to the presumptive Democratic Party candidate.
Feb 27, 2008 - 10:33 pm 4. Amphipolis:NAFTA is a treaty. Obama would have no authority to rescind it. He is a Senator, he knows this – as Hillary knows she can not violate mortgage contracts.
This is an obvious political ploy, as he told the Canadians. McCain should shred his credibility over this.
Feb 28, 2008 - 7:07 am 5. Amy Dugan:What Is Obama Really Going to Do About NAFTA?
Some people blame our weak job market and economic troubles on free trade; however what we really need is smart trade. Hillary Clinton will promote trade that has higher labor and environmental standards. As President, she will ensure that trade lifts up not only American workers, but also workers around the world. She will as President demand a total review of all existing trade agreements and will not sign any new trade agreements until she ensures that trade policies raise our standard of living, and they must have strong protections for workers and the environment. I am the daughter of a former Fisher Body employee and I know the issues of trade and job loss are very important here.
Feb 28, 2008 - 7:11 am 6. David W. Lincoln:As an Ohioan, I have heard falsely, that Hillary is for NAFTA. Despite false claims regarding Hillarys position on free trade, she always has and always will put the American worker first. Last summer I read Carl Bernsteins biography on Hillary Clinton, who by the way is no fan of the Clintons, that Hillary actually opposed NAFTA behind the scenes. Importantly, in Ohio on February 24, Obama actually stated I don’t think its realistic for us to repeal NAFTA, that would actually result in more job loss”. So I urge you to look at the facts before you cast your vote. To learn more about Hillary Clintons plans to help the Middle Class visit http://www.hillaryclinton.com
There is a saying from the 1970s from this neck of the woods, “Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark”.
As long as oil that comes from Alberta contributes to greenhouse emissions, it will not be bought by the United States. Well, guess what, that is exactly the case.
Now, you can either get off your high horse and admit that you imbibed of the koolaid of Al Gore, or you can freeze in the dark.
The choice is yours.
Feb 28, 2008 - 9:03 am