Thread: Obama camp told Canadians anti-NAFTA 'it's just rhetoric'

EVERYTHING OBAMA SAYS IS JUST RHETORIC


Obama camp told Canadians 'it's just rhetoric'?
Network claims aide assured official that anti-NAFTA talk not serious

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Posted: February 29, 2008
2:23 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

An operative of Sen. Barack Obama assured Canadian officials that the Democratic presidential candidate's talk of opting out of the North American Free Trade Agreement is just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously, alleges Canada's CTV television network

The Obama campaign told CTV late last night no such message was passed on to the Canadian government. But the network said it got no response to repeated questions about whether a conversation on the matter was held between Obama's senior economic adviser – Austan Goolsbee – and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago.

CTV said it spoke with Goolsbee, but he refused to say whether he had such a conversation. The Obama adviser said he had been told to direct any questions to campaign headquarters.

In a debate in Ohio Tuesday, both Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton suggested they would opt out of NAFTA if core labor and environmental standards were not renegotiated.

CTV also cited sources who said that after the debate, Clinton's campaign made indirect contact with the Canadian government to reassure officials of their support.

McCain responded to CTV's initial story yesterday.

"I don't think it's appropriate to go to Ohio and tell people one thing while your aide is calling the Canadian ambassador and telling him something else," McCain said, referring to Obama. "I certainly don't think that's straight talk."

The Canadian Embassy in Washington issued a denial yesterday, saying, "At no time has any member of a presidential campaign called the Canadian ambassador or any official at the embassy to discuss NAFTA."

But CTV said sources at the highest levels of the Canadian government who provided the original story have reconfirmed their position.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a warning to anyone contemplating renegotiation of the trade deal, CTV reported.

"If a future president actually did want to open up NAFTA, which I highly doubt, then Canada would obviously have some things we would want to discuss," Harper said.

As WND reported, while Obama has blasted Hillary Clinton for flip-flopping on NAFTA, according to the public record, he has also switch positions.

Obama has turned trade into a centerpiece of his campaign in Ohio, where trade agreements are particularly unpopular as domestic manufacturing jobs disappear. Ohio is among four states holding nominating contests March 4.

"What the world should interpret is my consistent position, which is I believe in trade," he said after meeting with workers at a manufacturing plant in Ohio. "I just want to make sure that the rules of the road apply to everybody and they are fair and that they reflect the interests of workers and not just corporate profits."

Just last October, however, Obama announced he would vote for a Peruvian trade agreement that would expand NAFTA into that country.

In fact, he was the first presidential candidate to declare support for the NAFTA expansion. He was also the keynote speaker at a luncheon of the Hamilton Project – a Wall Street group working to drive a wedge between Democrats and organized labor on globalization issues.

NAFTA went into effect in 1994 while former President Clinton held office. In her memoir, Hillary Clinton called NAFTA a success, though she says she has a plan to review it and fix it.

Obama said he opposed NAFTA from the start and U.S. workers were not the only ones to suffer from its effects. Wages and benefits in Mexico had not been improved by the treaty, he said.

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