2012 Democratic Presidential Candidates on Trade Issues

In evaluating the effectiveness of our national trade policy, a look at our trade surpluses, or rather, deficits, provides a most telling answer. Our deficits for the past 16 years have crossed the six billion dollar mark, and the deficit with China alone accounted for almost half of it, at 270 billion. As our economists struggle to explain these staggering numbers, China has quietly accumulated in excess of two trillion dollars worth of foreign exchange reserves during the same period.

This imbalances of our trade deficit, along with the inherent disadvantages that our manufacturers and industries face owing to our labor and environmental policies, that is not being asked of their foreign competitors, are just some of the more pertinent issues that needs to be tackled by our presidential candidates before we even move to issues involving North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

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Comment on Trade Issues

Declared 2012 Democratic Presidential Candidate
Current President of the United States

Barack Obama

Obama Position on Trade Issues

• Obama is of the opinion that global trade is unsustainable if it favors only the few and that
America's global trade will be short lived if it favors only some people and not all. He feels that
trade should be free and fair for all.

• He feels that NAFTA protects corporate profits; should protect labor.

• Obama fully stands for trade and globalization but is not for CAFTA, the implementation of free
trade with Central America. He also feels that trade agreements must deal with matters of fairness
such as labor, environmental and consumer safety.

• He is a person who stands for assisting workers who lose globalization's race to the bottom.

• Obama is quite agreeable to Peru Trade as it includes labor and environment protections.

• Obama is of the opinion that it is absolutely not possible to reverse globalization as America
will only be worse off due to this. He stated in his speech in Flint that "Rather than fear the
future, we must embrace it."

• He feels that America's trade policy should not be ruled by particular interests.

• Obama is for strong labor, safety, and environmental standards on trade.

• Obama strongly feels that the NAFTA was oversold to USA and wants to amend it.

• While was speaking to an AFL-CIO audience he stated, "What I oppose and have always opposed are
trade deals that put the interests of multinational corporations ahead of the interests of American
workers -like NAFTA and CAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China."