Organizing for America

Fact Check: Obama Never Said We Should Support Trade Deals Like NAFTA

Today's New York Times quotes a Clinton spokesperson pointing to a 2004 story claiming Obama had been in favor of NAFTA-like trade agreements. In fact, Obama has consistently opposed NAFTA-like trade deals and the 2004 the report that the Clinton campaign cites is inaccurate.

2004 Chicago Tribune Cited Its Difference With Obama's Opposition to NAFTA. The Chicago Tribune wrote in an editorial, "We sharply differ with some of those views, particularly Obama's opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement." [Chicago Tribune, 2/29/04]

New Yorker: Obama Opposed NAFTA. The New Yorker wrote, "This is a regular theme with Obama: supporters who disagree with him. The two big Chicago daily papers both endorsed him enthusiastically in the primary, even though they disagreed with him on major issues-his opposition to the war in Iraq and, in the case of the Tribune, his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement." [New Yorker, 5/31/04]

Obama Said NAFTA And CAFTA Were Not In The Best Interest Of The American Worker "Because They Did Not Contain The Sorts Of Labor Provisions And Environmental Provisions" That They Should Have. "The AP reported, "Obama said he supports the foreign trade deal, which is especially important to labor and U.S. manufacturers. He said active trading is a key way to keep the United States competitive. 'We're not going to draw a moat around the United States' economy. If we do that, then China is still trading, India is still going to be trading,' said Obama, who voted against the recent Central American Free Trade Agreement and opposes the pending trade deal with South Korea. 'I think that NAFTA and CAFTA did not reflect the interests of American workers but reflected the interests of the stock owners on Wall Street, because they did not contain the sorts of labor provisions and environmental provisions that should have been embedded and should have been enforceable in those agreements,' he said." [AP, 10/10/07]

Click below for the full transcript of Obama's response referenced in the 2004 story

Obama Said He Supported "Restructuring NAFTA." "Do you support rolling back NAFTA or GATT?" Obama said, "I would support restructuring NAFTA and GATT to make sure that environmental protections, labor protections and so on are in place. And I also think that we've got to enforce some of these provisions more aggressively, the same way other countries are doing. I use the example of China. If China is devaluing its currency by 40 percent and we are not challenging them on that, then there's not much point of having China in the WTO, if they're not respecting our trademarks and our copyright laws. If we have countries that continue to present barriers to us - non-tariff barriers - to our products getting to market, then those are all issues that I think we've got to challenge these countries on. And that's the responsibility of the Administration. The problem in a lot of our trade agreements is that the Administration tends to negotiate on behalf of multinational companies instead of on behalf of workers and communities. If we had a shift in orientation in terms of who are we negotiating for, then I think you'd see some different outcomes." [Illinois Farm Bureau Transcript, 9/8/04]