Obama names Richardson

CHICAGO

The North American Free Trade Agreement, which President-elect Barack Obama frequently derided as a candidate, has yet to surface in his public remarks even as the Democrat named a new commerce secretary and prepared to select the chief trade negotiator.

Democratic sources said Rep. Xavier Becerra, California Democrat and a NAFTA critic, is the leading contender to be the U.S. trade representative.

“The selection suggests Obama is serious about reforming our trade policies, and it should be applauded,” wrote David Sirota in his blog at OpenLeft, calling Mr. Becerra a “solid choice” and “a huge change.”

Overseeing trade generally for the new administration will be Bill Richardson, the New Mexico governor and former presidential candidate whom Mr. Obama nominated Wednesday for commerce secretary.

But NAFTA - which both men said during the campaign must be renegotiated because it has cost thousands of American jobs - was not discussed.

The Obama transition office directed questions about whether the president-elect would renegotiate NAFTA to the campaign Web site statement.

The site notes Mr. Obama believes “NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. [Mr. Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.] will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.”

During the heated primary campaign with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Obama frequently presented himself as an ardent opponent of NAFTA, passed during President Clinton’s first term, calling the deal “unfair” and promising to renegotiate it if he were elected.

“I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced,” Mr. Obama said in a February debate in Ohio.

Speaking to the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia in April, Mr. Obama said he would “refuse to accept” that the United States would have to sign trade deals that are “bad for American workers.”

Obama staffers suggested Mrs. Clinton was not as staunchly against NAFTA as she said on the campaign stump, and the two sparred via nasty mailers as senior Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee told the Canadian government not to worry about campaign rhetoric.

Still, his promise to renegotiate NAFTA was lauded, especially when Democrats courted blue-collar workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. The talk lessened during Mr. Obama’s general election against Republican Sen. John McCain.

The word “trade” was not mentioned once Wednesday, though Mr. Richardson’s Commerce Department includes as fundamental to its mission “promoting and assisting international trade.”

Mr. Richardson said Wednesday he aims to create “millions of new jobs that can never be outsourced.”

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