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Trade truth the casualty in U.S. election bombast


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Dems are known as protectionist. So it will be a rough ride for NAFTA and other such deals if the Obama makes it to the WH. Might even be worse with Hilly there. She thinks Canada is full of terrorists waiting to jump into the US.

Trade truth the casualty in U.S. election bombast

DEREK DeCLOET

February 16, 2008

...Canadians love Barack Obama. They're fond of Hillary Clinton, too. Several weeks ago, when the Harris/Decima polling firm asked 1,000 Canadians who they'd most like to see become U.S. president, 34 per cent picked Senator Clinton, 23 per cent Senator Obama. John McCain? Three per cent....

Democratic politicians have always been tempted to use the protectionist card for votes. This time, however, the rhetoric is being turned up to max volume. Here's Mr. Obama the night that he swept the Potomac primaries: "We can't keep playing the same Washington game ... It's a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. That's what happens when the American worker doesn't have a voice at the negotiating table, when leaders change their positions on trade with the politics of the moment."...

"Here we have the possibility of a major-party candidate winning on a trade-skeptic platform," says Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute's Centre for Trade Policy Studies in Washington. There are a couple of reasons why the anti-free-trade message is resonating, he figures. Important Democratic constituencies, such as labour unions, have hardened their opposition to trade deals - so in a close primary, where every delegate counts, they are pandered to. But it is broader than that. The U.S. economy is shakier than it has been in any presidential election year since '92. Leaving aside his geographical malapropism - Mexico isn't exactly "overseas" - Mr. Obama's words tap into a deep concern among American workers that trade deals export the good jobs, leaving them to scrape the grease off the grill at Wendy's....(more)

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Dems are known as protectionist. So it will be a rough ride for NAFTA and other such deals if the Obama makes it to the WH. Might even be worse with Hilly there. She thinks Canada is full of terrorists waiting to jump into the US.

It's all good...we hear the same rhetoric from Canada come election time or latest softwood lumber crisis. Canada had no problem taking American autoworker and call center jobs. Onlt six months notice is required to leave NAFTA, but that isn't going to happen.

There is one less Canadian terrorist to worry about....he is in a US federal prison (Ahmed Ressam).

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