Abstract

When Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton pledged to Ohio Democrats last spring to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, they were immediately charged by the mainstream press with pandering to labor, thus reigniting the simplistic “free-trade vs. protectionism” debate that has dominated the discussion of the U.S. role in the international economy for the last quarter-century. It was clearly an over reaction. After all, both candidates merely suggested strengthening the agreement’s labor and environmental protections, which even fierce champions of NAFTA now concede are inadequate. Changing them would have little effect on the rest of the agreement.

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