Biden favours trade that is 'fair' not free

This article is excerpted from the 27 August 2008 edition of “globeandmail.com”.

Brace yourself for a barrage of tough rhetoric on trade from Joe Biden, Democrat Senator Barack Obama's vice-presidential pick.

The U.S. senator from Delaware has vowed to overhaul the North American free-trade agreement and take Prime Minister Stephen Harper "to the mat."

A self-described "fair trader," Mr. Biden voted against recent trade pacts between the U.S. and other countries. He's also pushed for strict enforcement of U.S. and international trade laws.

And like most Democrats, he wants new and explicit protections for workers and the environment built into all future trade deals.

"Hey look, a president's job is to create jobs, not to export jobs, and the idea that we are not willing to take the prime minister of Canada and the president of Mexico to the mat to make this agreement work is just a lack of presidential leadership," Mr. Biden said of NAFTA last year while he was campaigning to become the Democratic presidential nominee….

How Mr. Biden could ultimately steer an Obama administration's economic and trade policies remains unclear.

Mr. Obama's own voting record on trade and his public comments suggest a less doctrinaire opposition to free trade.

… NAFTA-bashing is likely to be a prominent feature of the upcoming campaign, particularly in working-class battleground states, such as Ohio and Michigan, which have suffered steep auto-related job losses.

"There are aspects of the free-trade agreement that the United States is not happy with, and so my expectation is that there will be a reopening of NAFTA," said Toby Condliffe, the international vice-chairman of Democrats Abroad and a long-time Toronto resident. Mr. Condliffe said he wasn't speaking for the party.

Experts expect the tough talk on trade to start tonight as the Democrats look to pin the country's economic woes on the Bush administration.

"You'll hear Biden say things like, 'We don't want Uncle Sam treated like Uncle Sucker,' " said Earl Fry, a political science professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

But in the end, "pragmatic heads will win out," he said. "We have so much to lose by reopening NAFTA."

Prof. Fry said he expects an Obama administration would be a lot more prudent about fiddling with NAFTA and reject any sharply protectionist path.

Indeed, the Democratic Party's official platform on trade is distinctly less protectionist in tone than the campaign language. Among other things, it calls for shoring up NAFTA's environmental and labour protections.

Jeffrey Schott, a trade expert and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, acknowledged that the Democratic election platform marks a "sharp shift" on trade from the Bush administration's policies, but isn't overtly protectionist.

"It's a workable approach that should allow the United States to continue to have good trade relations with its closest trading partners, including Canada and Mexico."…

In the end, Mr. Schott said he expects an Obama administration would refocus its economic policies on domestic issues, moving away from the aggressive trade negotiating of the Bush administration.

And he predicted that the United States would "engage" Canada and Mexico with a plan to update NAFTA by consensus, rather than a broad reopening of the deal. All three countries, Mr. Schott pointed out, have an interest in tackling mutual issues, such as climate change and energy.