Obama begins the weasel dance-
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Obama softens on NAFTA
J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Illinois Senator Barack Obama denies in a forthcoming Fortune magazine interview that his administration would move to unilaterally reopen NAFTA (June 18, 2008).
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Barack Obama (Democrat)
Presidential hopeful backs off threat to reopen trade pact; says he would talk with Canada, Mexico
Jun 20, 2008 04:30 AM
Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON–Barack Obama, who once vowed to use the "hammer'' of opting out of NAFTA to force the renegotiation of the trade pact, now says he will seek change through dialogue if he is elected U.S. president.
The presumptive Democratic nominee says in the upcoming edition of Fortune magazine that campaign rhetoric can sometimes get "overheated and amplified," and he denies he would move to unilaterally reopen the trilateral trade deal.
Obama's comments surfaced on the eve of a Canadian appearance by his rival, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who is expected to use an Ottawa speech today to highlight the Democrat's threat to reopen the deal.
Obama dialled back his anti-NAFTA stance in an interview with Fortune the same day he said he received a congratulatory phone call from Prime Minister Stephen Harper on winning enough convention delegates to get the Democratic presidential nomination.
"I'm not a big believer in doing things unilaterally," Obama said in the Fortune interview. "I'm a big believer in opening up a dialogue and figuring out how we can make this work for all people.''
His campaign denied he said anything in the interview that changed his core position on trade, pointing to earlier statements in which he promised to talk to Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon about improving NAFTA's labour and environmental standards.
At a debate in Cleveland in the final days of the Ohio primary campaign in March, Obama agreed with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton when she said the six-month opt-out clause should be invoked on NAFTA to force changes.
"I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labour and environmental standards that are enforced," he said.
But every time Obama alters his statements on NAFTA, he lends credence to a Feb. 8 memo describing a meeting between his economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and George Rioux, Ottawa's consul-general in Chicago.
The Canadian memo, which was leaked to The Associated Press, said Goolsbee told Rioux that Obama's campaign remarks about NAFTA should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy.
In a more complete Fortune transcript, obtained by the online Huffington Post, Obama says: "My core position has never changed.
"I've always been a proponent of free trade and I've always been a believer that we have to have strong environmental provisions and strong labour provisions in our trade agreements.
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