Obama's NAFTA Scandal

Politicians or infamous for failing to keep campaign promises. Sometimes this can be incredibly frustrating. But at other times, it may be for the best.

Bark Obama and Hillary Clinton have been battling with each other to see who can be more anti NAFTA. They’re campaigning in Ohio where many manufacturing jobs have been lost and where NAFTA is deeply unpopular, particularly among union members, a key Democratic primary voting bloc. However, most serious economists will agree that NAFTA has overall been a great benefit to the United States. While some jobs have been displaced, many more jobs have been created. Still, is understandable why people who have lost their jobs as a result of free trade would be against NAFTA. But removing the United States from NAFTA would be a terrible mistake. Even Obama and Clinton seemed to admit this by saying they want to renegotiate NAFTA rather then pull out. But they are going to use the threat of pulling out of NAFTA to convince Mexico and Canada to accept the changes that they want.

Hopefully, should either win the election in November, this will be one of those campaign promises that they don’t keep. However, there has been something of a controversy because it appears Austan Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and an economics adviser to Obama,, talked to Canadian officials and said that they shouldn’t be too concerned about Obama’s statements.

There have been numerous denials from the Obama campaign, some of which were later proven untrue. Byron York has an excellent article on national review online reviewing the story as well as the Obama campaign denials. He reaches these conclusions.

After talking with people knowledgeable about these events, it’s possible to come to a few early conclusions. One, there was a meeting. Two, the DeMora memo was a good-faith effort to record what went on at that meeting. Three, the conversation did touch on NAFTA. Four, the Canadian government’s statement was a carefully worded, diplomatic message that did not shed any light on whether the key accusation against the Obama campaign — that it privately hedged its position on NAFTA and then misled the public about it — is true. And five, the Canadian statement did say outright that Goolsbee was contacted because he was involved in the Obama campaign, not — as Plouffe claimed — because he was a university professor.

While I don’t know much about Austan Goolsbee the fact that he is an economics professor at the University of Chicago which has one of the best economics department in the world, tells me he is a serious man. He understands that NAFTA has helped this country and that pulling out would be a mistake. I believe he probably listened to Obama’s anti NAFTA speeches and discounted them as one of those campaign promises you don’t keep. Maybe he came to this conclusion after discussing the issue with Obama and maybe he didn’t. But when talking to the Canadian Consular officials, as a serious economist, he tried to reassure them. Now Obama is getting blowback. But that happens when you take an irresponsible position just because it is popular.