Thread: Vicente Fox to talk trade at WSU

Vicente Fox to talk trade at WSU
BY TOM WALSH • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • September 11, 2008

Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, has a bone to pick with Barack Obama.

"In his book, Obama tells a story about a Maytag plant in Illinois that closed and the jobs went to Mexico," Fox told me in a telephone interview Wednesday. "Well, I know that story, and that plant could not compete in the U.S.A. against China. It would have closed anyway, but by moving work to Mexico a lot of jobs were created." In other words, the jobs stayed in North America instead of moving to Asia.

Matter of perspective
In the world view of Fox, Mexico's president from 2000-06, the Maytag story is a win. Obama and the 1,600 Maytag workers who lost jobs in 2004 probably don't see it that way.

That's typical of the economic debate over globalization. Trade produces the benefits in the form of less-expensive products and lower inflation. It also creates job losses as work migrates from higher-cost producers -- in places like Illinois and Michigan -- to lower-cost producers in Mexico or China.

Fox, 66, is to bring his frank opinions on trade and immigration Friday to Wayne State University, where he will be this season's kickoff speaker in WSU's Forum on Contemporary Issues in Society series. He also plans to sign copies of his 2007 book, "Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith and Dreams of a Mexican President."

Fox, who was president of Coca-Cola Mexico before entering politics, is an unabashed supporter of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement among Mexico, Canada and the United States, which removed most tariffs on goods traded among the three countries.

Obama has said that if elected president, he would discuss changes in NAFTA with Mexican and Canadian leaders. His foe, John McCain, has been a supporter of free trade in general and NAFTA in particular.

Support for McCain
Fox also gives high marks to McCain for supporting immigration reform, although the 2005 immigration bill that McCain cosponsored with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has stalled in Congress.

"When I was president, Kennedy and McCain came to discuss immigration with me," Fox said.

"No doubt," he added, "McCain has much more knowledge and experience than Obama on these issues."

That said, Fox also assumes that Obama, if elected, would moderate his views on trade from those espoused during the primary campaign when he was trying to appeal to organized labor, a key constituency in the Democratic Party base.

"Anybody that runs for office knows that governing is a different responsibility than running. Points of view change," he said.

Fox's views may not sit well with everyone in Detroit, but he will deliver them forcefully.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... 0417&imw=Y

Viocente Fox should take his unsolicited politics and his self-aggrandizement and bury it along with his slink and stink.

I can still remember how many of our idiot governors, senators, and Congressmen, etc. went rushing down to lay flowers at his feet, be entertained lavishly by Mexican officials, and assure him of America's unending gratitude for his very existence in a corrupt Mexican society. Little did we know at the time that his diabolical intent was to get everything he could from us and convert America into alta-Mexico. To this day his Mexican consulates have mushroomed all over this country and his people are still pouring across our southern border at 1 million a year.