[Pen-l] Goolsbee was right after all

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, March 4, 2008
Memo Gives Canada’s Account of Obama Campaign’s Meeting on Nafta
By MICHAEL LUO

The denials were sweeping when Senator Barack Obama’s campaign mobilized 
last week to refute a report that a senior official had given 
back-channel reassurances to Canada soft-pedaling Mr. Obama’s tough talk 
on Nafta.

While campaigning in Ohio, Mr. Obama has harshly criticized the North 
American Free Trade Agreement, which many Ohioans blame for an exodus of 
jobs. He agreed last week at a debate with Senator Hillary Rodham 
Clinton that the United States should consider leaving the pact if it 
could not be renegotiated.

On Monday, a memorandum surfaced, obtained by The Associated Press, 
showing that Austan D. Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the 
University of Chicago who is Mr. Obama’s senior economic policy adviser, 
met officials last month at the Canadian consulate in Chicago.

According to the writer of the memorandum, Joseph De Mora, a political 
and economic affairs consular officer, Professor Goolsbee assured them 
that Mr. Obama’s protectionist stand on the trail was “more reflective 
of political maneuvering than policy.”

It also said the professor had assured the Canadians that Mr. Obama’s 
language “should be viewed as more about political positioning than a 
clear articulation of policy plans.”

Campaign officials said the memorandum inaccurately described Professor 
Goolsbee’s comments, as well as Mr. Obama’s position.

“At no point did anyone in our campaign convey to anyone that there had 
been any backing away from Obama’s position on Nafta,” a campaign 
spokesman, Bill Burton, said Monday.

(clip)

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NY Times, April 21, 2009
In Shift, Obama Doesn’t Plan to Reopen Nafta Talks
By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said on Monday that it had no 
plans to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement 
to revise its labor and environmental provisions, as then-Senator Barack 
Obama promised to do during his presidential campaign.

“The president has said we will look at all of our options, but I think 
they can be addressed without having to reopen the agreement,” said 
Ronald Kirk, the United States trade representative.

Mr. Kirk spoke in a conference call with reporters after returning from 
the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad over the weekend. He said 
President Obama conferred there with the leaders of Mexico and Canada — 
the other parties to the free trade agreement — and “they are all of the 
mind we should look for opportunities to strengthen Nafta.”

Though a formal review of the pact has yet to be completed, Mr. Kirk 
noted, both Mr. Obama and President Felipe Calderón of Mexico have said 
that “they don’t believe we have to reopen the agreement now.”

In particular, Mexico, whose exports have grown hugely since the 
agreement was ratified in 1992, has little interest in such a renegotiation.

Mr. Obama was not the only candidate for president who promised during 
the campaign to renegotiate the accord, a politically popular position 
in some electorally important Midwestern states that have lost thousands 
of manufacturing jobs. His chief Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham 
Clinton, who is now secretary of state, did so as well.

Thea Lee, the policy director for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said that her 
organization would have preferred “more definitive” language about labor 
concerns, but that it was understandable for a new administration to 
start its review with a less confrontational approach.

Since the election, neither the president nor the secretary of state has 
said much about trying to move Nafta’s side agreements on labor and the 
environment — which are subject to limited enforcement — into the main 
part of the trade pact, a potentially tangled and protracted process.

Mr. Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, who is known as a strong advocate 
of free trade, said that the administration also planned rapid reviews 
of pending agreements with Colombia and Panama.

He said that Colombia had made “remarkable progress” in reducing 
violence — attacks against labor advocates had been a crucial sticking 
point — but that other issues remained to be resolved, and he promised 
to consult intensively with Congress on the matter.

The Bush administration signed the agreement with Colombia in November 
2006. But Congressional Democrats and American labor groups say they 
want the Colombian government to do more to stop antilabor violence and 
hold perpetrators accountable. Mr. Obama said similar things during the 
campaign.

Regarding Panama, Mr. Kirk said that differences on labor standards and 
the question of Panama “possibly being a tax haven,” needed resolution. 
President Obama and Mr. Kirk met with leaders of Panama and Colombia 
during the Trinidad summit meeting.
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