NAFTA bashing popular, but is it justified?

HANGING ROCK, Ohio -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama each spent the past week trying to outdo the other as the fiercer critic of America's free-trade policy.

It's an obvious campaign pitch in a state with a decaying manufacturing base and a displaced work force that blames free trade for sending jobs overseas and flooding the United States with cheap foreign goods.

The rhetoric culminated at a Cleveland debate in advance of Tuesday's key -- and perhaps deciding -- Ohio primary. Both candidates threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if the deal were not renegotiated to raise the labor and environmental standards of foreign competitors.

Those threats put the Democratic presidential candidates far ahead of some of their key supporters in Washington, D.C., who say withdrawing from NAFTA is impractical and could undermine America's standing in the world.

Obama's and Clinton's charges over trade policies also concern free-trade advocates. President Bush and the prime minister of Canada were disturbed by what was said in the debate, as were business interests and Democrats who helped make free trade a priority of Bill Clinton's presidency.

What has gone unsaid on the campaign trail is that there is little hard evidence NAFTA is to blame for Ohio's economic woes. In fact, last year Canada and Mexico were the state's top two export markets.

But it's easy to see why Obama and Clinton talk so much about trade while campaigning here.

Free trade has become to Democrats what immigration is to Republicans, said Edward Gresser, trade-policy director at the Progressive Policy Institute. Both issues tap into a sense of unease American workers feel about the future and the role of foreign influence.

A recent poll by Rasmussen Reports of likely Democratic voters in Ohio found 16 percent of them think NAFTA is good for America.

Anti-NAFTA sentiments likely aren't as strong in more trade-dependent states such as Washington or Texas, which also holds a primary Tuesday. In states where the economy is stronger and job opportunities more plentiful, workers tend to look more positively on trade deals.

"People sense the economy is changing and in Ohio -- maybe in contrast to Texas and Washington -- if you're a 50-year-old guy ... there are two things that come with job loss: You can lose your health insurance very easily, and you may lose your pension," Gresser said.

"So the specter of job loss, especially for an older worker, is the specter of tragedy."

Is NAFTA to blame?

The job loss nationally that can be attributed specifically to the trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada is quite small, said Ian Sheldon, a professor of international trade at Ohio State University.

And, he said, "Ohio has not been affected disproportionately compared to other states."

Free-trade opponents disagree, and they cite the 50,000 jobs lost in Ohio between 1993 -- when NAFTA was approved -- and 2004 as proof of the damage.

But trade experts say those changes are mainly due to such factors as technology, not trade policy. And while NAFTA may have cost some jobs, others were created.

Whatever the case, the state's many blue-collar union workers believe NAFTA is to blame for the decline of Ohio's manufacturing. That handy acronym is now used to condemn any trade deal.

As the Ohio primary campaign went on, the candidates seemed to match the tone of the voters they were trying to court.

Clinton said at a town-hall meeting in Hanging Rock on Thursday that U.S. trading partners continually try to change the rules of free trade.

"We just have to be willing to say, wait a minute. We are the best traders in the world," she told reporters. "But we are tired of being treated like patsies. We are going to have reciprocal trade, or we're not going to let our markets be open when other markets are not."

In Hanging Rock, home to fewer than 300 people in the Appalachian foothills, Clinton heard from those who lost jobs when industrial plants closed, leading to a spiral of financial problems.

"NAFTA is taking its toll," Jon Ater, 53, said outside the former school where Clinton met with about 150 people. "It's absolutely devastated this county. It's just economically depressed. Manufacturing is void."

Ater didn't have one of those manufacturing jobs. But he had a sales route that took him throughout southeast Ohio. He says what used to be a productive region has become a place where public assistance is a way of life.

"From Cincinnati to Youngstown to Portsmouth, it's nothing but a huge socialistic state," he said. "A friend I grew up with just moved back here, and he signed up for welfare."

Ater works three jobs to pay the bills. He runs a small farm, manages a bit of property and is a baker at a nearby Jolly Pirate Donuts.

Ater blames corporate America for the economic problems. "It's greed," he said. "They saw slave labor in China -- and Communist China at that -- and took advantage of it. It happened so fast, no one knew how to respond."

Gresser sees the trade skepticism reflecting the same public emotion as what he terms the Republican base's "immigration phobia."

His think tank is associated with the Democratic Leadership Council, which pushed free trade during the Clinton administration and still supports the policy.

"People are kind of worried. They don't know where the U.S. is going," Gresser said. "They attribute a little bit or a lot of that feeling to foreign pressures of various sorts. That comes out in the Republican Party more in ways of immigration and in our party more about worries about trade."

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has reiterated his support for free trade and NAFTA, and he has cautioned against what he called the Democrats' creeping isolationism.

Trade: an easy target

Gresser says factors other than trade deals have to be blamed for Ohio's significant job losses.

There have been huge leaps in technology and the use of the Internet in commerce and industry. There are more and larger container ships that can quickly move goods from continent to continent.

"There is a perception of accelerating globalization, and it is probably accurate," Gresser said. "But it's not a reflection of policy as much as it is of really powerful structural changes and technological changes."

He said it'd be "kind of foolish to say, 'Why don't we turn off the Internet?' I think trade and trade policy become more ready targets."

The concerns about NAFTA have rubbed off on the rhyming CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Democrats also are wary of pending deals with Panama, Colombia and South Korea.

Besides criticizing NAFTA, Clinton has called for a 90-day moratorium on any new trade deals.

Obama has made much of Clinton's statements from before she began running for president that were more positive about NAFTA. Obama had some nice things to say about NAFTA in years past, too, which Clinton brings up.

The fact that the candidates seem to have few significant differences on trade doesn't make it easy for Ohio Democrats still trying to decide how to vote.

"It's the toughest decision I've ever had to make in a primary," said Donnie Blatt, who works for the United Steel Workers in Columbus.

How much of his decision will be based on trade issues?

"Ninety percent," he said.

Kill NAFTA? Not likely

Is it that likely NAFTA would be renegotiated under a President Clinton or President Obama? Not really.

At a public forum in Washington, D.C., last week, Rep. Artur Davis, D-Alabama, an Obama friend and supporter, said he didn't like the idea of "reopening agreements we have negotiated because the rest of the world thinks that we don't keep our word enough as it is."

And Sheldon, the Ohio professor, said it is unrealistic to think NAFTA could be renegotiated to benefit Ohio workers any more than it does today.

"I think that it would be much more constructive to focus on how to help workers in the U.S. generally, and specifically in Ohio, to adapt to the impact of trade and globalization," he said in an e-mail.

"The economic cost of undoing the trade liberalization that has happened in the post-1945 period would be huge in my view," he said.

The Democratic debate has spurred some action in D.C. The Bush administration and the business lobby are renewing their effort to get congressional approval for the three stalled free-trade agreements.

The White House announced Friday it would hold a conference call with reporters this week to tout the advantages of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Christopher Wenk, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's senior director of international policy, cautions free-trade supporters from overreacting to what Clinton and Obama are saying in Ohio. That sort of rhetoric is aimed at a primary-election audience, he says, and will no doubt be moderated by the general election in November. Besides, he said, history is on the side of free trade.

"We have had pro-trade presidents for the last 50 years, and that isn't something that is going to change whether we have President McCain, President Obama or President Clinton," he said.

"Trade is one-third of our economy. We can't walk away from that. It would be devastating."

David Postman: 360-236-8267 or dpostman@seattletimes.com