NAFTA Nonsense Insults Our Allies

Election 2008: In Tuesday's debate, Democrats blasted the North American Free Trade Agreement. Sure, they're pandering for Rust Belt votes. But do they ever consider the impact of their statements on our allies?

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That's who is being hurt by the slew of anti-NAFTA statements that seem to be particularly aimed at Mexico, even if the problem actually comes from somewhere else.

"In Youngstown, Ohio, I talked to workers who have seen their plants shipped overseas as a consequence of bad trade deals like NAFTA, literally seeing equipment unbolted from the floors of factories and shipped to China, resulting in devastating job losses and communities completely falling apart," Democratic front-runner Barack Obama said at a Texas debate last week, making sure that all the woes of China trade got wrapped in the word NAFTA.

It got even more shrill Tuesday night in Ohio:

"I would immediately have a trade timeout, and I would take that timeout to try to fix NAFTA by making it clear that we'll have core labor and environmental standards in the agreement," said Obama's rival, Hillary Clinton. Likewise, Obama spoke of using the "hammer" of withdrawal to enforce compliance.

Both candidates threaten to leave NAFTA unless its "labor and environmental standards" are strictly "enforced." Enforcement? Hammer? What kind of criminals are these would-be G-men talking about? Evil ruffians out there committing . . . trade.

This not only insults our allies and trading partners, it signals to everyone else that America's capricious, chest-thumping protectionist ally, Mexico, a third-world nation that is trying hard to transform itself into a first, bears the brunt of this coded jingoism.

That's because trade pacts these days are about more than just trade — they represent long-term strategic partnerships. But after this talk, who'll want to sign a permanent trade deal knowing they'll be threatened by ambitious politicians every election season?

Far from being an enemy, Mexico is a partner with whom we did $350 billion in two-way trade last year. In the process, we've gained millions of high-paid jobs in the U.S. The relationship has boosted U.S. incomes an average $2,000 per family since 1994. Besides buying 35% of our global exports, Mexico and Canada are also two of our biggest oil suppliers, selling us energy we'd be in huge trouble without.

Casting NAFTA nations as villains sends a chilling message to the dozen other nations that have since signed NAFTA-like agreements — countries as friendly and diverse as Singapore, Jordan, El Salvador, Australia, Morocco and Chile.

They must be wondering when their moment will come to be blamed for poisoned toys, sick pets, bad dumplings, factory shutdowns, outsourcing and all the broader problems of globalization that have nothing to do with their pacts.

Worse still, the irresponsible talk could have a chilling effect on strategic allies waiting for free trade pacts they've already signed to be approved — Colombia, Panama and South Korea. We've left them hanging. What a fine way to win and keep allies.

The demagoguery is particularly objectionable because it's dishonest. First, the NAFTA pact wasn't shoved through by fiat. It was negotiated over years by the Clinton administration, with major input from both Republican and Democratic Congresses.

Everyone got his or her say at the time, and after many debates, the agreement passed both houses in late 1993.

Unlike our trade with China, which is subject to tariffs but contains no major labor or environmental demands, NAFTA did include labor and environmental standards, with the trade-off for Mexico and Canada being the permanence of the treaty.

Subsequent ones, such as 2007's Peru free trade agreement, and the nearly identical pending Colombia pact, required even tougher labor and environmental standards to ensure passage.

Nations give up a lot to sign free trade pacts with the U.S. And some, such as Mexico, endure considerable internal opposition.

But they do it not because selling cheap toys here is such a big deal, but because embracing the trade pact's legal infrastructure comforts investors and helps lure foreign investment.

For these countries, those investments are their future.

Threatening to renege on a permanent treaty — as Clinton and Obama are doing through their identical vows to "opt out" of the deal — signals loudly that America's word is no longer its bond. A permanent pact with the U.S., it turns out, isn't so permanent.

An approach like that toward our treaty partners sends a chilling signal to our friends. It's Obama and Clinton who need to cool it.