Harper, Brodie, Obama, Clinton & NAFTA
I’m finding it a bit difficult to get worked up about both the Clinton and Obama campaigns passing quiet messages to the Canadian government not to get too worked up about their NAFTA statements — it’s an election, and people like Stephen Harper understand what campaign rhetoric is about.
The leak offers all of us, north and south of the border, a very valuable lesson - you cannot trust a politician.
My thoughts:
Ian Brodie should be dusting off his resume.
Anyone with a basic understanding of NAFTA (it’s 180 pages or more, so not a quick read by any stretch) “gets” that Ohio can be as angry as they want with NAFTA, but the North American Free Trade Agreement has buggar-all to do with jobs shipped to China (other than, perhaps, being the top of the infamous slippery slope).
Any Canadian politician should be able to figure out the difference between campaign rhetoric and reality (particularly vis-a-vis jobs shipped to China, not, to my knowledge, a party to NAFTA).
I could go on, but I won’t.
“North American Free Trade Agreement has buggar-all to do with jobs shipped to China (other than, perhaps, being the top of the infamous slippery slope).”
Yet, would that slope be quite as slick without NAFTA? It moved labour from the US and Canada to Mexico, which then was easily outbid by China. Fini! Isn’t that how it played out?