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President Bush’s top trade adviser blasted promises by the two Democratic presidential candidates to renegotiate a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, suggesting this would lead to a decline in U.S. jobs. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said Wednesday that both countries would make demands of the U.S. if the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were renegotiated, and suggested the give-and-take of the talks would work to the United States’s disadvantage. “You try to open up any of these agreements ... what are we going to pay for it?” Schwab said in comments at an event sponsored by the Institute for Education. “Undoing any part of these agreements, you are almost by definition going to see a deterioration in the economic impact or the jobs impact.” Without mentioning either Democratic presidential candidate by name, Schwab criticized “the notion that you can somehow reopen an agreement like NAFTA and not expect Mexico and Canada to ask for things” that they did not get when the trade agreement was negotiated more than a decade ago. In response to a question, Schwab said there is “no question, no question at all” that a renegotiation of NAFTA could actually increase unemployment in Ohio, a battleground state where Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) battled fiercely over NAFTA. Clinton won the primary and likely ensured the Democratic race will continue on at least to Pennsylvania’s April 22 contest, where trade policies could also be a huge issue. Schwab said the U.S. would have to offer concessions if it wanted to reopen NAFTA to add tougher language on labor and environmental standards that was included in a trade deal with Peru approved by Congress last year. That language was only added to the Peru deal by the Bush administration after Democrats won majorities of Congress in 2006 and demanded the changes. Among the demands Mexico, Canada and other free-trade partners might make of the U.S., according to Schwab, are restrictions on U.S. agriculture exports, changes that would allow more of their citizens to work in the United States or a weakening of intellectual property rights. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, has criticized both Democratic candidates for their statements on NAFTA. Schwab noted that while some polls indicate skepticism about trade, Republicans appear on the verge of nominating one of the most pro-trade candidates in this year’s field. |
