Guest Column
The presidential candidates’ positions on trade
- Daily Local Business
- April 5, 2008
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan and independent membership organization, the following are highlights of the presidential candidates’ positions on trade.
Hillary Clinton
In general a supporter of free trade, Sen. Clinton (D-NY) has parted ways with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, on several trade-related issues. She has expressed skepticism about aspects of the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, which he supported, and has taken less enthusiastic positions on the benefits of globalization more generally.
In a February 2008 Democratic debate, Clinton said she has “been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning,” but that she did not make her objections to it public because “I was part of the administration.” She pledged to renegotiate NAFTA to ensure better labor and environmental protection. She has said she would change NAFTA’s “investment provisions that grant special rights to foreign
companies” and will strengthen its “enforcement mechanisms.” She also says she will review NAFTA “regularly.”
In March 2000, Clinton said NAFTA “was flawed,” and that the United States “didn’t get everything we should have got out of it.” Four years earlier, the AP says Clinton described NAFTA as beneficial to workers. “That’s what a free and fair trade agreement like NAFTA is all about,” she said.
In her 2003 memoir, Living History, Clinton wrote, “Creating a free trade zone in North America — the largest free trade zone in the world — would expand U.S. exports, create jobs and ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization. Although unpopular with labor unions, expanding trade opportunities was an important administration goal.”
Clinton voted in support of the creation of Free Trade Agreements, or FTAs, with Chile, Singapore, and Oman. But she criticized the FTAs with Chile and Singapore for what she said was their weak enforcement of International Labor Organization (ILO) standards. She said “the labor provisions in the Chile and Singapore agreements should not be used as a model for future trade agreements.” Clinton voted against CAFTA and the Trade Act of 2002. In 2004, Clinton voted for the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, which she said “offers greater access to Australian markets for U.S. manufacturers.” Clinton spoke out against the pending FTA with South Korea (Reuters), which she called “inherently unfair,” particularly for the U.S. auto industry. She has also criticized FTAs with Colombia and Panama. Clinton expressed support, on the other hand, for the FTA with Peru, which passed in the Senate in December 2007.
Clinton says she would implement a “time-out” on trade for the first several months of her presidency to “provide an opportunity to systematically review every trade agreement to ensure that it is delivering benefits to American workers,” she said in November 2007.
Clinton also expresses concerns over U.S. trade practices with China. “We just can’t keep doing what we did in the 20th century,” she said in a March 2007 interview (Bloomberg). In a February 2008 speech, Clinton said China has the upper hand in trade with the United States.
“China’s steel comes here and our jobs go there. We play by the rules and they manipulate their currency. We get tainted fish and lead-laced toys and poisoned pet food in return,” she said, promising to take a “consistent approach” toward China trade if she is elected.
Barack Obama
Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) generally supports free trade policies, though like many of his fellow Democratic candidates, he has expressed concern about free trade agreements that do not include labor and environmental protections. In a February 2008 speech at the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wis., Obama said he “will not sign another trade agreement unless it has protections for our environment and protections for American workers.”
Obama has called NAFTA a “bad” trade deal. In an August 2007 Democratic debate, Obama said he would meet with the Canadian and Mexican heads of state to “try to amend NAFTA,” saying the agreement “should reflect the principle that our trade should not just be good for Wall Street, but should also be good for Main Street.”
In a February 2008 Democratic debate, Obama said he would “make sure that we renegotiate” NAFTA and use “the hammer of a potential opt-out” of NAFTA as leverage to ensure enforceable labor and environmental protections.
Still, in February 2008, Obama said he did not think “it’s realistic for us to repeal NAFTA,” because that could lead to “more job loss ... than job gains.” (ABC)
Obama voted to approve the 2006 FTA with Oman. He opposed CAFTA, however, explaining in 2005, “It does less to protect labor than previous trade agreements, and does little to address enforcement of basic environmental standards in the Central American countries and the Dominican Republic.” Obama did not vote on the 2007 Peru FTA, but expressed support for the deal (AP).
In a March 2008 speech, Obama said he would oppose a free trade agreement with Columbia, because “the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.” Obama has also criticized the U.S.-South Korea FTA, which he said is “bad for American workers.”
Obama has criticized China for manipulating its currency, and in June 2007 urged Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to take action against China. “At least partially as a result of the Administration’s failure to address Chinese currency manipulation, the U.S. imported more than $232 billion in goods from China than we sold to it last year,” he wrote.
In March 2008, Obama praised the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act, which requires that the Government Accountability Office examine the CPSC’s monitoring of goods imported to the United States, and make recommendations to improve safety and regulation. “We must ensure that the CPSC has every tool available to effectively regulate imported products in today’s global marketplace and protect our most vulnerable citizens from dangerous products,” Obama said.
John McCain
Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) voted in favor of NAFTA in 1994 and continues to firmly support the trade deal. In February 2008, McCain said trade and national security are “interconnected” (AP). He criticized his Democratic opponents for their attacks on NAFTA, and said threatening to renegotiate or withdraw from NAFTA (ABC) could “affect Canadian public opinion adversely,” and could thereby cause Canada to withdraw its military support for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.
McCain sees trade as especially important as a means to open “closed societies” in the Middle East. “It’s past time for nations of the Middle East to join the global economy, and for rulers to lead increasingly restive populations in the direction of democracy and free markets,” he said in 2003. McCain supported Bush’s plan to build a free trade area in the Middle East by 2013.
McCain has been a consistent supporter of free trade
legislation, achieving a top rating by the pro-trade Cato Institute. He
voted in favor of free trade acts with Oman, Australia, Chile, and
Singapore. He also voted to approve CAFTA. In February 2008, McCain called
free trade “the future of America’s economy” (NYT) and warned against
protectionism.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)