Media Highlights

Sallie James: ...

Fox News Channel Host: "Presumptive republican candidate John McCain today, continues hitting democratic rivals hard. This time on free trade. While Senators Clinton and Obama squabble over how to best fix NAFTA, McCain says the treaty doesn’t need fixing. Correspondent Molly Heninburg has details."
Heninburg:
"Speaking to employees at Dell Headquarters, in Round Rock Texas, Senator John McCain, says democrats may want to change NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, but he doesn’t, at least not unilaterally. A point he then repeated in a press conference."
Senator John McCain:
"And I believe that when someone, as Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have said, would “renegotiate” a treaty which went through years of negotiations with our leading trading partner Canada without consulting or without the agreement of our Canadian partners. I think it sends the wrong message to the world."
Heninburg:
"But Democrats are using NAFTA to appeal to their base in manufacturing states such as Ohio. Which has lost jobs, which unions claim are because of NAFTA. Senator Obama and Clinton have hit on the theme frequently in the run up to Tuesday’s primary."
Senator Obama:
"I think that NAFTA was a fundamental mistake."
Senator Clinton:
"I’m the only candidate with a comprehensive plan to fix NAFTA."
Heninburg:
"McCain’s camp also believes he can use NAFTA and his support of it in states like Texas which has benefitted from the trade agreement. And to shore up part of the GOP base free market economic conservatives."
Senator John McCain:
"I believe in free trade, I will stick with free trade and it is the future of America’s economy and every time in history we have practiced protectionism, we have paid a very heavy price for it."
Heninburg:
"And McCain who often benefits from playing up his national security strength, altering NAFTA could cause the Canadians to pull their troops out of Afghanistan."
Senator John McCain:
"If we announce that we are going to unilaterally change a treaty or suspend it, which is important to them, I think obviously can affect Canadian public opinion adversely."
Heninburg:
"But would changing NAFTA bring jobs back to Ohio? Some trade analyst say not necessarily."
Dan Griswold: "The problems in Youngstown Ohio and other places like that, go back decades before NAFTA. It is part of a structural shift in the U.S. economy away from heavy industry to more light manufacturing to services, higher-end services so it is a cruel illusion to say if we just go in and ticker with NAFTA that there will be some sort of industrial renaissance."