Those who think politicians are phonies (not a small number, I would imagine) will be getting plenty of reinforcement from Barack Obama who is as phony as it gets. The nonsense he’s been shoveling about NAFTA is right up there on the demagoguery scale. Rich Lowry puts his hammer on the head:
Obama’s culprit is Mexico, our third-largest trading partner. It is trade deals like NAFTA — the 1993 accord eliminating tariffs among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada — that “ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with teenagers for minimum wage at Wal-Mart,” Obama intones. Feel inspired yet?The big picture doesn’t justify this Dickensian evocation of gloom. Since 1993, the U.S. economy has grown by 54 percent. The jobless rate has dropped from 6.9 percent in 1993 to 4.9 percent today. Manufacturing output has increased by 63 percent. Canada and Mexico are our first- and second-largest export markets, and U.S. merchandise exports to them have increased at a slightly faster clip than exports to the rest of the world.
So what exactly is bad about NAFTA? Well, there’s probably some fine print that needs to be refined (always is), but it’s a largely successful agreement that has created jobs on all sides. Obama reminds me of Romney when the former governor, during the recent primary, told Michigan voters he would bring back industrial jobs to their outdated economy. Of course, Romney knew he was lying just as Obama knows he’s lying now. That’s the politics of hope? I predict right now McCain will do to Obama what he did to Romney – blow him out of the box.
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15 Comments
1. Lem:Obama’s foreign policy seems to differ a great deal from that of past presidents. Forget nuance.
He says he will reach out, talk to our enemies Castro, Chaves, Iran …you name them he might talk to them.
… and he says he will abandon our friend Iraq (faster than and NASCAR qualifier) as above, trashes our trade with Mexico, hinting he might abandon that too.
Is there anything sacred, Obama might not change?
Feb 26, 2008 - 6:31 pm 2. srlucado:“I predict right now McCain will do to Obama what he did to Romney – blow him out of the box.”
I completely agree, and I’m looking forward to seeing it happen.
Feb 26, 2008 - 6:55 pm 3. photoncourier.blogspot.com:If a Democratic President starts a trade war, a lot of people are going to suffer economically…for starters, the employees of export-intensive businesses like Caterpillar, Boeing, and GE Transportation.
The political question is: How many of them realize it?…Does the average Boeing employee, for example, feel more threatened by the aspects of the production process that Boeing has outsourced/offshored, or by the prospect of losing orders and building fewer airplanes?
Feb 26, 2008 - 7:36 pm 4. Doug S.:If you think illegal immigration from Mexico is a problem now, think of how much worse it will get if you throttle the Mexican economy by cutting off free trade. Or, conversely, if you think poverty in Mexico is problem, explain to me how putting a damper on cross-border economic activity will help.
Feb 26, 2008 - 8:08 pm 5. TerryeL:I have been listening to people tell me for years, that all the Mexicans are coming up here for jobs and all the jobs are going to Mexico. Somehow or other the conflict escapes them.
The Democrats want to diss our neighbors and love up to our enemies. How strange is that?
The fear and loathing of NAFTA is based on an ignorance of the fact. And a lot of the people who feel this way are not liberal either. I was talking to an older man here in rural Indiana the other day and he told me that free trade was the worse thing that ever happened to America. I asked to explain that and he said all the good jobs were shipped overseas. I was at a loss as to how to respond without insulting the man. I really was. I told him that simply was not true, NAFTA is commerce and since when did old capitalists not believe in commerce and trade. He seemed surprised to hear it put in terms like that.
I also reminded him that a trade war with our neighbors might not work out very well for the American worker/consumer.
Feb 27, 2008 - 4:11 am 6. David Thomson:John McCain must emphasize Barack Obamaís lack of experience, far left of center policies, and reluctance to directly combat the Islamic nihilists. The presumptive Democratic Party leader is the George McGovern of 2008. Middle of the road voters will roundly reject Obama if they clearly understand these matters. John McCain must make sure the MSM does not con the American people into believing Obama is more moderate than he actually is.
Feb 27, 2008 - 4:58 am 7. LarryD:They appease whom they fear, insult those they don’t. They’re cowards. And narcissists. And they also suck up to authoritarians because that is what they want to be.
Feb 27, 2008 - 5:37 am 8. Webutante:God, I hope you’re right about McCain blowing Obama out of the water down the road, Roger. I can envision the ‘mesmerize factor’ overpowering McCain, myself. So I’m more than willing to defer to my elders on this one. (I loved saying that.)
Feb 27, 2008 - 5:39 am 9. Lem:It’s hard enough to get a coalition of the willing to lift a finger anywhere around the world with Bush who keeps his word.
What would an Obama coalition look like?
AQ would love an Obama presidency. If they could AQ would give money to Obama.
Feb 27, 2008 - 6:16 am 10. Lem:Hey, there is a poll question.
America IF AQ could back a candidate with campaing donations who would they back?
Hillary? … McCain? or.. drum roll.. Obama?
I would run that!
Feb 27, 2008 - 6:25 am 11. David Thomson:John McCain should subtly encourage the American middle of the road voters to ask themselves this question: would you even consider Barack Obama if were white? Is he a serious candidate only because so many well meaning people wish to prove that they are not racists? The answer, of course, is obvious. Rasmussen says that forty-three percent of all American voters simply refuse to vote for Obama. Just a little more than a seven percent increase of this sort of negativity is sufficient to doom his campaign.
Feb 27, 2008 - 6:39 am 12. heather:“Obama reminds me of Romney when the former governor, during the recent primary, told Michigan voters he would bring back industrial jobs to their outdated economy. Of course, Romney knew he was lying just as Obama knows he’s lying now.”
I agree that Romney had to be lying when he said that: he knows too much about “the Economy” and “Business”.
However. And here I am being very very depressed: Obama really believes all that. He is really that ignorant of economic reality. He is NOT lying!
Feb 27, 2008 - 12:26 pm 13. Barrett:Heather, I must agree that Obama is ignorant of economic reality.
In addition to attacking free trade, he has proposed about $290 billion in new spending initiatives. Forget the realities that the OBM expects a $400 billion deficit in fiscal 2008 and that we already have $3.1 trillion federal budget filled with entitlements and waste. He wants to eliminate all of the Bush tax cuts and eliminate the caps on Social Security taxes. Of course, there is more.
This is an attack on economic freedom and liberty. The goal of government is to provide freedom and liberty for it’s citizens and NOT try to make all citizen’s equal (like our socialist and communist friends).
On a practical level, all of this will reduce incomes. Will this be good for the housing market? Employment? Tax receipts? The strength of the dollar? Investment?
Obama is a dangerous person.
Feb 27, 2008 - 9:32 pm 14. TerryeL:From Investors Business Daily, Editorial Page:
This not only insults our allies and trading partners, it signals to everyone else that America’s capricious, chest-thumping protectionist ally, Mexico, a third-world nation that is trying hard to transform itself into a first, bears the brunt of this coded jingoism.
That’s because trade pacts these days are about more than just trade ó they represent long-term strategic partnerships. But after this talk, who’ll want to sign a permanent trade deal knowing they’ll be threatened by ambitious politicians every election season?
Far from being an enemy, Mexico is a partner with whom we did $350 billion in two-way trade last year. In the process, we’ve gained millions of high-paid jobs in the U.S. The relationship has boosted U.S. incomes an average $2,000 per family since 1994. Besides buying 35% of our global exports, Mexico and Canada are also two of our biggest oil suppliers, selling us energy we’d be in huge trouble without.
Casting NAFTA nations as villains sends a chilling message to the dozen other nations that have since signed NAFTA-like agreements ó countries as friendly and diverse as Singapore, Jordan, El Salvador, Australia, Morocco and Chile.
They must be wondering when their moment will come to be blamed for poisoned toys, sick pets, bad dumplings, factory shutdowns, outsourcing and all the broader problems of globalization that have nothing to do with their pacts.
Worse still, the irresponsible talk could have a chilling effect on strategic allies waiting for free trade pacts they’ve already signed to be approved ó Colombia, Panama and South Korea. We’ve left them hanging. What a fine way to win and keep allies.
The demagoguery is particularly objectionable because it’s dishonest. First, the NAFTA pact wasn’t shoved through by fiat. It was negotiated over years by the Clinton administration, with major input from both Republican and Democratic Congresses.
Everyone got his or her say at the time, and after many debates, the agreement passed both houses in late 1993.
Unlike our trade with China, which is subject to tariffs but contains no major labor or environmental demands, NAFTA did include labor and environmental standards, with the trade-off for Mexico and Canada being the permanence of the treaty.
Subsequent ones, such as 2007’s Peru free trade agreement, and the nearly identical pending Colombia pact, required even tougher labor and environmental standards to ensure passage.
Nations give up a lot to sign free trade pacts with the U.S. And some, such as Mexico, endure considerable internal opposition.
But they do it not because selling cheap toys here is such a big deal, but because embracing the trade pact’s legal infrastructure comforts investors and helps lure foreign investment.
For these countries, those investments are their future.
Threatening to renege on a permanent treaty ó as Clinton and Obama are doing through their identical vows to “opt out” of the deal ó signals loudly that America’s word is no longer its bond. A permanent pact with the U.S., it turns out, isn’t so permanent.
Feb 28, 2008 - 3:40 am 15. Neo:The true measure of NAFTA demagoguery boils down to the question ..
Are Mexico and Canada overseas ?
Feb 29, 2008 - 1:09 pm