OTTAWA — Senator John McCain’s campaign sent out an e-mail message on Friday highlighting what it called Senator Barack Obama’s “completely mystifying shift” on the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Republican National Committee issued a news release charging that Mr. Obama is “for free trade but against free trade agreements” and even released a Web video about Mr. Obama and free trade.
Mr. McCain’s campaign plane, full of reporters, made an unusual foray past the battleground states here to Canada, where Mr. McCain gave a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in which he was applauded for saying that “for all the successes of Nafta, we have to defend it without equivocation in political debate.”
But throughout the visit here Mr. McCain did not refer to Mr. Obama by name and insisted the trip had “nothing to do” with the presidential campaign. Democrats charged that assistance the campaign received from the United States ambassador to Canada might have violated the federal law that forbids certain government employees to engage in partisan politics; the McCain campaign denied any wrongdoing, saying that the trip was not political and that the campaign had raised no money in Canada.
Mr. McCain demurred at campaign-related questions from Canadian and American reporters at a news conference, saying that answering them “would then lend a political bent to this visit.”
The backdrop to the unusual trip was a simmering debate that Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has been waging with Mr. Obama, his all-but-certain Democratic rival. The debate centers on Nafta, but it is really about much more than tariffs and treaties.
The McCain campaign is using the issue of free trade in part to appeal to economic conservatives who have sometimes been wary of him, but more to question Mr. Obama’s candor after he has sent shifting signals about trade in the past year.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats are using the issue to question Mr. McCain’s empathy, and support, for struggling working people, especially in the Rust Belt, where many workers blame free trade for the closing of factories and the loss of jobs.
Free trade became a major issue in the Democratic primaries, when all the major candidates, courting votes in Rust Belt states and the support of unions that oppose free trade agreements, took a sharply critical view of free trade agreements. Mr. Obama said that he would favor an “opt-out” clause that would allow the United States to walk away from the deal if better labor and environmental standards could not be negotiated.
Mr. McCain alluded to that in his speech here. “Demanding unilateral changes and threatening to abrogate an agreement that has increased trade and prosperity is nothing more than retreating behind protectionist walls,” he said.
A political sensation — and minor international incident — erupted during the Democratic primary when a leaked memorandum surfaced in which a Canadian consular officer wrote that a senior Obama adviser had assured him that Mr. Obama’s protectionist stand on the campaign trail was “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.” The Obama campaign denied that that had been its message to the Canadians.
In a recent interview with Fortune magazine, Mr. Obama, who has been sharply critical of Nafta for doing too little to protect workers or the environment, was quoted as saying, “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified.”
Speaking at a fund-raising event in Jacksonville, Fla., late Friday, Mr. Obama insisted that he had been “entirely consistent” on Nafta, repeating that he would seek to have it renegotiated because it does not enforce labor or environmental standards.
He also took a shot at Mr. McCain, noting, “It’s interesting to me that he chose to talk about trade in Canada rather than in Ohio or Michigan.”
In a memorandum titled “Words Matter,” Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to the McCain campaign, linked Mr. Obama’s shifting tone on free trade to his decision not to participate in public financing after saying that he would. “As we scrutinize Barack Obama’s words,” Mr. Schmidt wrote, “it is increasingly difficult for those of us with the responsibility of following this year’s election closely to discern what Obama truly believes at his core on the issues of great importance to the American people.”
A senior economic adviser to Mr. Obama said the senator’s position on Nafta was “exactly” the same as it was during the primaries. He said Mr. Obama would renegotiate the pact to strengthen provisions for workers and the environment in all countries. Asked about Mr. Obama’s support of the opt-out clause, the adviser said that “he wanted all options on the table.” The Obama campaign pushed back with a conference call in which several Democratic officials, including Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan, attacked Mr. McCain’s trade policies.
Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, a Democrat, was asked whether Mr. Obama, if elected, would have the United States withdraw from Nafta if he were not satisfied with any renegotiated deal. “That’s just not going to happen,” he said. “It’s beyond the realm of any real possibility that people are going to stomp away from the table and one of the countries is going to walk away from Nafta.”
Michael Cooper reported from Ottawa, and John M. Broder from Chicago. Kitty Bennett contributed reporting from Washington.
Mr. McCain’s campaign plane, full of reporters, made an unusual foray past the battleground states here to Canada, where Mr. McCain gave a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in which he was applauded for saying that “for all the successes of Nafta, we have to defend it without equivocation in political debate.”
But throughout the visit here Mr. McCain did not refer to Mr. Obama by name and insisted the trip had “nothing to do” with the presidential campaign. Democrats charged that assistance the campaign received from the United States ambassador to Canada might have violated the federal law that forbids certain government employees to engage in partisan politics; the McCain campaign denied any wrongdoing, saying that the trip was not political and that the campaign had raised no money in Canada.
Mr. McCain demurred at campaign-related questions from Canadian and American reporters at a news conference, saying that answering them “would then lend a political bent to this visit.”
The backdrop to the unusual trip was a simmering debate that Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has been waging with Mr. Obama, his all-but-certain Democratic rival. The debate centers on Nafta, but it is really about much more than tariffs and treaties.
The McCain campaign is using the issue of free trade in part to appeal to economic conservatives who have sometimes been wary of him, but more to question Mr. Obama’s candor after he has sent shifting signals about trade in the past year.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats are using the issue to question Mr. McCain’s empathy, and support, for struggling working people, especially in the Rust Belt, where many workers blame free trade for the closing of factories and the loss of jobs.
Free trade became a major issue in the Democratic primaries, when all the major candidates, courting votes in Rust Belt states and the support of unions that oppose free trade agreements, took a sharply critical view of free trade agreements. Mr. Obama said that he would favor an “opt-out” clause that would allow the United States to walk away from the deal if better labor and environmental standards could not be negotiated.
Mr. McCain alluded to that in his speech here. “Demanding unilateral changes and threatening to abrogate an agreement that has increased trade and prosperity is nothing more than retreating behind protectionist walls,” he said.
A political sensation — and minor international incident — erupted during the Democratic primary when a leaked memorandum surfaced in which a Canadian consular officer wrote that a senior Obama adviser had assured him that Mr. Obama’s protectionist stand on the campaign trail was “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.” The Obama campaign denied that that had been its message to the Canadians.
In a recent interview with Fortune magazine, Mr. Obama, who has been sharply critical of Nafta for doing too little to protect workers or the environment, was quoted as saying, “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified.”
Speaking at a fund-raising event in Jacksonville, Fla., late Friday, Mr. Obama insisted that he had been “entirely consistent” on Nafta, repeating that he would seek to have it renegotiated because it does not enforce labor or environmental standards.
He also took a shot at Mr. McCain, noting, “It’s interesting to me that he chose to talk about trade in Canada rather than in Ohio or Michigan.”
In a memorandum titled “Words Matter,” Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to the McCain campaign, linked Mr. Obama’s shifting tone on free trade to his decision not to participate in public financing after saying that he would. “As we scrutinize Barack Obama’s words,” Mr. Schmidt wrote, “it is increasingly difficult for those of us with the responsibility of following this year’s election closely to discern what Obama truly believes at his core on the issues of great importance to the American people.”
A senior economic adviser to Mr. Obama said the senator’s position on Nafta was “exactly” the same as it was during the primaries. He said Mr. Obama would renegotiate the pact to strengthen provisions for workers and the environment in all countries. Asked about Mr. Obama’s support of the opt-out clause, the adviser said that “he wanted all options on the table.” The Obama campaign pushed back with a conference call in which several Democratic officials, including Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan, attacked Mr. McCain’s trade policies.
Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, a Democrat, was asked whether Mr. Obama, if elected, would have the United States withdraw from Nafta if he were not satisfied with any renegotiated deal. “That’s just not going to happen,” he said. “It’s beyond the realm of any real possibility that people are going to stomp away from the table and one of the countries is going to walk away from Nafta.”
Michael Cooper reported from Ottawa, and John M. Broder from Chicago. Kitty Bennett contributed reporting from Washington.
