Jeff Mason
Reuters
February 25, 2008
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| Obama opposes Hillary’s support for NAFTA, the "trade agreement" largely responsible for sending U.S. jobs to slave labor gulags in the third world, but is all for "free trade," that is to say more of the same under a different name. | |
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LORAIN, Ohio (Reuters) – Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama assured U.S. trading partners on Sunday that he did not oppose free trade despite making increasingly critical comments about multilateral deals such as NAFTA.
Obama, an Illinois senator, has turned trade into a centerpiece of his campaign in Ohio, where trade agreements are particularly unpopular as domestic manufacturing jobs disappear.
Texas and Ohio hold nominating contests on March 4, and Obama has criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement at campaign stops in both states.
He has pounded rival Hillary Clinton, a New York senator, for switching positions on NAFTA and said repeatedly that he would revisit that pact to instill environmental and labor standards.
But Obama, who would enter the White House with only four years of experience as a U.S. senator in addition to several years in the Illinois legislature, said his misgivings about NAFTA did not mean he was opposed to such accords in general.
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