Clinton and Obama Attempt to Deceive US Voters on Trade Stance, Canada Reveals

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080306/pl_afp/canadausdemocratsvotediplomacy






Both Clinton and Obama reassured Canada on trade


by Michel Comte

















US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton's campaign, while rapping rival Barack Obama for telling US voters he is anti-NAFTA and saying otherwise to Canada, tried to reassure Canada too, local media said Thursday.


A top aide of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meanwhile was identified as the likely source of an alleged leak that provoked a diplomatic fiasco involving both US Democratic presidential contenders.


Last month, Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie, purportedly made impromptu remarks to journalists about Clinton's US presidential bid, said Canadian reports.


The offhand comments apparently sought to downplay the potential impact on Canada of Clinton and Obama's attacks on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during stops in the US state of Ohio.


Brodie told reporters that the Clinton campaign had called the Canadian embassy in Washington to tell officials to take her anti-NAFTA rhetoric "with a grain of salt," said local media.


Around the same time, a news agency reported that a Canadian government memo detailed a meeting between Obama's chief economic advisor Austan Goolsbee and officials from the Canadian consulate in Chicago.


The memo reportedly said Goolsbee noted Obama's attacks on NAFTA should not be taken out of context, citing fiercely protectionist sentiment in Ohio about the pact and political positioning as a motivation.


Thursday, US Ambassador David Wilkins told public broadcaster CBC this amounted to Canadian political interference in the US political process. "It certainly shouldn't have happened; it was interference," he said.


The affair has certainly embarrassed Canada's diplomatic corps and may have cost Obama votes in the crucial Ohio primaries earlier this week.


The 1994 trade pact created the largest trading bloc in the world by eliminating import tariffs on goods circulating among partners Canada, the United States and Mexico.


In a televised debate last month in Ohio, both Obama and Clinton said if the next US president is a Democrat, Mexico and Canada would be pressured to renegotiate NAFTA.


But free trade and NAFTA in particular is a fiercely contentious issue in Ohio, which has been badly hit by the flight of blue collar jobs abroad, and increased global economic competition.


As the scandal unfolded, Clinton accused Obama's campaign of giving the Canadian government "the old wink-wink" while Republican nominee John McCain said it showed Obama was not a straight shooter.


Obama countered: "Nobody reached out to the Canadians to try to assure them of anything."


Goolsbee's meeting with Canadian Consul General Georges Rioux was later confirmed, but Goolsbee said his remarks were misrepresented.


The Clinton camp has not yet commented on the latest allegations, but acknowledged Canada's Obama smudge gave her campaign a "significant" boost during the recent US primaries.


The Canadian prime minister's office has said Brodie "does not recall" making the statements to reporters said to have set off the scandal, and Harper himself denied that Brodie leaked any information.


On Wednesday, Harper announced a probe into the "blatantly unfair" and possibly "illegal" leaking of the government memo assailing Obama.


But Canada's opposition New Democrats urged Harper to fire Brodie for his alleged Clinton slip and called for a federal police

Competition Not Protection For U.S. Automakers in Canada

Competition not protection for Automakers


http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/303443


Try harder to sell cars overseas: Emerson


TheStar.com - Business


Trade minister rejects Hargrove's demand for restrictions on imports


February 14, 2008


Richard Brennan


OTTAWA BUREAU


OTTAWA–The Big Three automakers should try harder to sell their vehicles to other countries rather than expect the federal government to put up protectionist trade barriers, International Trade Minister David Emerson says.


"But the reality is the industry has not focused on non-North American markets, whether it's Korea or any other non-North American market," Emerson said yesterday, reacting to suggestions from Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove that Ottawa put trade restrictions on imported vehicles.


"Buzz always kind of speaks the rhetoric of free trade but when it comes right down to it, I'm not convinced he's a true free trader," Emerson told reporters.


Hargrove told a news conference on Tuesday that if reciprocal trade measures are not introduced soon, General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. Ltd., particularly, could go belly up within a decade.


"What he is saying is that he wants us to negotiate access into the Korean and Japanese market for vehicles and parts and obviously that's what a free-trade negotiation is about," Emerson said. "And yet they seem to want us to walk away from the free-trade negotiations. So I'm a little puzzled by it.


"I don't think modern trade negotiations are about those kinds of deals. I don't think major economies like Japan and Korea would be interested in that kind of a deal."


Canada and the United States signed in 1965 the Automotive Products Trade Agreement, which kept Canada's auto industry healthy for 35 years. But the World Trade Organization determined in February 2000 that the Auto Pact violated international trading rules and the agreement formally came to an end in February 2001.


While Hargrove still talks about the days of the North American Auto Pact, Emerson said those days are gone.


"The Auto Pact was a very tender small step, a careful step toward North American free trade and it had built into it all kinds of production safeguards that kept it from actually being a free-trade agreement," Emerson said.


"We eventually went to free trade but that was after many, many years of people reducing their nervousness about our ability to compete in a North American market."


Emerson said North American industry exports only about one-third of 1 per cent of production, but Hargrove said that's because there is no political pressure on countries like Korea and Japan to buy vehicles made by GM, Ford and Chrysler.


"They're not exporting to any significant markets outside of North America. The Canadian auto industry is fundamentally focused on the North American market," he said.