David Brooks
Kathleen Parker
Stuart Taylor
David Gergen
Clive Crook
Andrew Grove
Megan McArdle
Michael Gerson
William Galston
David Broder
David Ignatius
Some congressional democrats
Today it's Nina Easton..........
Trying to decipher where President Obama really stands on free trade can be like trying to trace the U.S.-Mexico border with a Google map. There are words, and there are actions - but there is mostly that long squiggly line in between.Here are the words: "Trade is an important engine for economic growth," Obama declared during last week's visit by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. One month earlier, as NAFTA partner and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper stood at his side, he said, "We have to be very careful about any signals of protectionism."
Here are the actions: a "Buy America" provision in his stimulus bill; and in the omnibus spending bill he just signed, the cancellation of a NAFTA-created pilot program allowing limited fleets of regulated Mexican trucks to use U.S. highways.
And here are the squiggles: The Buy America provision was watered down to make it virtually toothless. And earlier this week, when Mexico threatened to retaliate over the trucking cancellation by imposing tariffs on U.S. goods, the White House insisted the program isn't kaput - it's just, well, being refined.
The Mexican government clearly didn't find the White House's latest squiggle to be a satisfying response. On Wednesday, the country released a list of products - ranging from Christmas trees to pet food and toilet paper - that would be subject to retaliatory tariffs. That sounds pretty close to the kind of trade war President Obama has insisted he's eager to avoid.
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