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Has the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had an overall benefit for the US?
Candidates' positions are categorized as Pro (Yes), Con (No), Not Clearly Pro or Con, or None Found.
Candidates who have changed their positions are listed as Now their most recent position.
(Candidates are listed in alphabetical order by party; black & white photos indicate candidates who have withdrawn or who no longer meet our criteria.)
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Has the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had an overall benefit for the US?
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Chuck Baldwin, Founder and Minister of the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL, issued the following statement through his Communications Director, Mary Starrett, in an Aug. 11, 2008 email to ProCon.org:
"We favor the abolition of the Office of Special Trade Representative, and insist on the withdrawal of these United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and all other agreements wherein agencies other than the Congress of these United States improperly assume responsibility for establishing American trade policies."
Aug. 11, 2008   Chuck Baldwin | | |
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Bob Barr, former US House Representative (R-GA), in a Mar. 5, 1999 article titled "Free Trade Must Be Fair Trade" on his US House of Representatives website, stated:
"Professional politicians -- especially those who live in Washington -- have a laundry list of bad habits. One of the worst, however, is making all sorts of wild promises about the things a piece of legislation will do, and then remaining silent as those promises go unfulfilled. If you're looking for an example of this phenomenon in action, you need go no further than the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...
Treaties like NAFTA force the United States to enter the competitive arena of international trade with one hand tied behind our backs. Similar trade privileges should not be extended to Latin America, Africa or the Caribbean basin. Additionally, the NAFTA treaty itself should be repealed unless its supporters can prove that it is having a positive effect."
Mar. 5, 1999 Bob Barr | | | |
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John McCain, US Senator (R-AZ), stated in a video titled "Re: Was NAFTA a Good Idea?" on Big Think website, dated Dec. 14, 2007:
"I know NAFTA was a good idea. It has created millions of jobs and it has helped the economies of all three of these nations. All you have to do is go to Detroit and see the thousands of trucks lined up every day or go to our southern border. There have been winners and losers. And that's the problem. But free trade is something that I think is vital to America."
Dec. 14, 2007 John McCain
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Cynthia McKinney, former US House Representative (D-GA), stated in a Jan. 8, 2008 article titled "Reconstruction Renaissance: An Interview with Cynthia McKinney," posted on All Things Cynthia McKinney website:
"We have to put a stop to these 'free trade' agreements, and quickly.
After 14 years of NAFTA it is absolutely clear that unemployment in the United States has risen as a result of this treaty. We are losing jobs -- especially jobs with living wages and benefits -- to all these 'free trade' agreements, be it NAFTA, CAFTA [Central America Free Trade Agreement], the Caribbean FTA [Free Trade Agreement], the US-Peru FTA, you name it. The American workers are not benefiting from these agreements. Their jobs and communities are being destroyed. Nor are working people in the rest of the world benefiting from these agreements. Quite the contrary: Their working conditions and living standards, which were already bad, are deteriorating exponentially. Only the transnational corporations are benefiting. They are reaping super-profits. This new 'globalization' has become a race to the bottom. And now the American workers have joined in this race."
Jan. 8, 2008 Cynthia McKinney | | | |
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Ralph Nader, attorney, author, and political activist, stated in a YouTube video of a PBS Now episode, "Ralph Nader on International Trade, NAFTA, and the WTO," (accessed Apr. 9, 2008):
"WTO [World Trade Organization] and NAFTA are systems of transnational forms of autocratic governance that subordinate our own courts and our own regulatory agencies and health, environment, labor, and consumer standards."
Apr. 9, 2008 Ralph Nader | | | |
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Barack Obama, US Senator (D-IL), stated in a Feb. 24, 2008 article titled "Remarks for Senator Barack Obama: National Gypsum in Lorain, Ohio" on his official candidate website:
"We can't keep passing unfair trade deals like NAFTA that put special interests over workers' interests...
...I don't think NAFTA has been good for America - and I never have. I didn't just start criticizing unfair trade deals like NAFTA because I started running for office - I'm doing it because I've seen what happens to a community when the factory closes down and the jobs move overseas."
Feb. 24, 2008 Barack Obama | | |
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INACTIVE CANDIDATES
(Candidates who have withdrawn or who no longer meet our criteria appear
below in black and white and in alphabetical order by party.) |
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Republican Party |
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3rd Parties / Independents |
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Biden, Joe
(Withdrew on
Jan. 3, 2008) |
None Found |
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Brownback, Sam
(Withdrew on
Oct. 19, 2007) |
None Found |
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Gravel, Mike
(Withdrew on
May 27, 2008) |
Con
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Clinton, Hillary
(Suspended campaign
on June 7, 2008) |
Now Not Clearly
Pro or Con
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Gilmore, Jim
(Withdrew on
July 14, 2007)
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None Found |
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Imperato, Daniel
(No longer met criteria
on Mar. 21, 2008) |
Not Clearly
Pro or Con
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Dodd, Chris
(Withdrew on
Jan. 3, 2008) |
None Found
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Giuliani, Rudy
(Withdrew on
Jan. 30, 2008) |
None Found
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Keyes, Alan
(No longer met criteria
on June 23, 2008) |
Con
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Edwards, John
(Withdrew on
Jan. 30, 2008) |
None Found
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Huckabee, Mike
(Withdrew on
Mar. 4, 2008) |
None Found
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Kubby, Steve
(No longer met criteria
on Mar. 21, 2008) |
Not Clearly
Pro or Con
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Kucinich, Dennis
(Withdrew on
Jan. 25, 2008) |
None Found
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Hunter, Duncan
(Withdrew on
Jan. 19, 2008) |
None Found
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McEnulty, Frank
(No longer met criteria
on Mar. 21, 2008) |
Pro
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Richardson, Bill
(Withdrew on
Jan. 10, 2008) |
None Found
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Paul, Ron
(Withdrew on
June 12, 2008) |
Con
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Smith, Christine
(No longer met criteria
on Mar. 21, 2008)
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None Found
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Vilsack, Tom
(Withdrew on,
Feb. 23, 2007)
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None Found |
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Romney, Mitt
(Withdrew on
Feb. 7, 2008) |
None Found
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Tancredo, Tom
(Withdrew on
Dec. 20, 2007) |
None Found |
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Thompson, Fred
(Withdrew on
Jan. 22, 2008) |
None Found
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Thompson, Tommy
(Withdrew on
Aug. 12, 2007) |
None Found |
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Withdrew on Jan. 3, 2008; no position found as of that date |
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Withdrew on Oct. 19, 2007; no position found as of that date |
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Hillary Clinton, US Senator (D-NY), stated at the Feb. 26, 2008 Democratic Presidential Debate in Cleveland, OH:
"[Hillary] Clinton: I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning. I didn't have a public position on it, because I was part of the administration, but when I started running for the Senate, I have been a critic. I've said it was flawed. I said that it worked in some parts of our country, and I've seen the results in Texas. I was in Laredo in the last couple of days. It's the largest inland port in America now. So clearly, some parts of our country have been benefited...
I have said that I will renegotiate NAFTA, so obviously, you'd have to say to Canada and Mexico that that's exactly what we're going to do...
[Tim] Russert: You will get out. You will notify Mexico and Canada, NAFTA is gone in six months.
Clinton: No, I will say we will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiate it, and we renegotiate on terms that are favorable to all of America."
Feb. 26, 2008 Hillary Clinton
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[Editor's Note: Prior to Hillary Clinton's Feb. 26, 2008 Not Clearly Pro or Con position above, her position was Pro as indicated in her quote from a Jan. 5, 2004 News Teleconference that was aired on a Nov. 18, 2007 broadcast of Meet the Press with Tim Russert below.]
"...I think on balance NAFTA has been good for New York and America."
Jan. 5, 2004 Hillary Clinton | | |
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Withdrew on Jan. 3, 2008; no position found as of that date |
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Withdrew on Jan. 30, 2008; no position found as of that date. |
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Withdrew on Aug. 14, 2007; no position found as of that date. |
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Withdrew on Jan. 30, 2008; no position found as of that date. |
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Mike Gravel, former US Senator (D-AK), in an article titled "How Mike Stands on the Issues" on his official candidate website (accessed Mar. 17, 2008), stated:
"The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been a disaster for the working class of both the US and Mexico and a boon to the international corporate interests. A study by the Economic Policy Institute found that over 1 million US jobs were lost as a result of NAFTA, a third of them manufacturing jobs."
Mar. 17, 2008 Mike Gravel | | |
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Withdrew on Mar. 4, 2008; no position found as of that date. |
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Withdrew on Jan. 19, 2008; no position found as of that date |
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Daniel Imperato, an Independent candidate and business entrepreneur, stated in a Mar. 11, 2008 telephone interview with ProCon.org:
"I think that NAFTA could have had a benefit for the United States of America, but unfortunately George Bush took over Bill Clinton's problem of terrorists entering our country. 9-11 took our eye off the ball pertaining to the NAFTA agreement and the implementation and the strengthening of the relations. So I think that NAFTA has been neglected. I think that NAFTA is a good trade agreement in basis."
Mar. 11, 2008 Daniel Imperato | |
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Alan Keyes, former Assistant US Secretary of State, stated during the Sep. 8, 2004 Illinois Agricultural Legislative Roundtable Candidates' Forum:
"I used to be, like a lot of conservatives, a pretty knee-jerk free-trader, and I was engaging in the NAFTA discussion at the time that that was controversial, and I started listening to some of my colleagues, people I know, Pat Buchanan and others, and they were making arguments against them, and I found over the course of time that I was less and less convinced by my own arguments. And I was less and less convinced by them because the concrete results that were being produced in various areas for America didn't correspond to the theory. And you do have to take account of this, you know, at some point. You have to ask yourself whether or not the theory that sounds good is actually producing results that are good. And yes, people will say, we've gotten some good results for our farmers, but it's all relative, as I was just saying. I believe we could get better results for our farmers, see? Because I believe we need to crack some of the nuts that are larger and have been resisting us successfully, making use of this peculiar mélange of regional and multilateral approaches...
But I think you especially start to be a little skeptical about the whole thing when you look at what has been the actual result for workers in our country."
Set. 8, 2004 Alan Keyes | | |
Steve Kubby, a Libertarian candidate and founder of the American Medical Marijuana Association, stated in a Mar. 12, 2008 email to ProCon.org:
"The stated intent of NAFTA -- to open the borders of the US, Mexico and Canada to a free flow of goods and services -- is good, but that could be accomplished with a one-sentence proclamation from each of the three governments: 'All restrictions, tariffs and excises on the movement of goods and services exchanged over the borders of the US, Mexico and Canada are hereby repealed.' Everything else in NAFTA is negative. It's a big stack of exceptions, set-asides and bureaucratic distortions with a fake 'free trade' stamp on it, and figuring out how the benefits and disadvantages balance against each other is a tangled web of special interests and loopholes."
Mar. 12, 2008 Steve Kubby
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Withdrew on Jan. 25, 2008; no position found as of that date |
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Frank McEnulty, an Independent candidate and President of Our Castle Homes, in a Mar. 19, 2008 email to ProCon.org, stated:
"Yes, to a point. I believe that we need to take a breather before we put into affect any further provisions of NAFTA so that we can get a good look at the positives and the negatives that have resulted from the agreement. This would be especially true when it comes to the effect it has had on jobs for Americans."
Mar. 19, 2008 | | | | |
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