WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials defended the North American Free Trade Agreement and blasted suggestions by the Democratic presidential candidates that the U.S. might withdraw.
“Quitting NAFTA would destroy economies in U.S. border communities, hurt U.S. farmers, rip apart North American supply chains and devastate large and small exporters,” Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a speech in Washington on Tuesday.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both pledged that if elected, they would threaten to pull out of NAFTA to force Mexico and Canada to renegotiate the accord and add new labor and environmental protections.
NAFTA has become a centerpiece of the Democratic primary in Ohio, which has lost almost 250,000 factory jobs since the accord took effect in 1994. Fifty-nine percent of Democratic voters in Ohio disapprove of NAFTA, compared with 13 percent who support it, according to a poll conducted Feb. 27-29 for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Bloomberg News
