Obama to tap NAFTA backer

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By David M. Dickson

President-elect Barack Obama, who pledged during his campaign to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, is poised to nominate a NAFTA backer as U.S. trade representative.

Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, an ardent NAFTA supporter, strongly endorsed a proposal in 2001 to build a "NAFTA freeway" between the United States and Mexico to increase trade between the two countries.

As mayor, Mr. Kirk made numerous trade-related overseas trips promoting Dallas.

"I think it's a rather interesting choice," said Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics. "For U.S. trade representative, you can hire a politician or a technocrat. When you look at what the job requires, a politician has important skills."

Mr. Schott said the important thing was for the trade representative to "get the Congress and the president on the same page for U.S. trade policy. Kirk was a successful mayor who seems to have these skills," Mr. Schott said.

In 1993, when the Clinton administration succeeded in getting a Democrat-controlled Congress to ratify NAFTA, Mr. Kirk served as an aide to Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, the former senator from Texas. Since then, Democratic members of Congress have become significantly more skeptical about trade deals. They have also opposed granting the president so-called "fast-track authority" to negotiate trade agreements, which Congress would then approve or reject without amendment on an up-or-down vote.

"In Kirk, what you have is a practical politician who has seen the good effects of NAFTA up close and personal and who has also seen the negative impacts," said Terry Miller, director of the Center for International Trade and Economics at the Heritage Foundation. "He seems to understand the overall benefits of an open trading system to American citizens."

Throughout the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama opposed pending free-trade deals with Colombia and South Korea. He cited violence against union leaders in Colombia and said South Korea unfairly restricted U.S. imports of beef, automobiles and rice. He also criticized the Bush administration for failing to take action against China for alleged currency manipulation.

As senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama did express support for the frequently suspended global trade talks known as the Doha Round. But he, along with the vast majority of other senators, also supported the large farm subsidies which have played a major role in the repeated failure of Doha negotiators to reach a deal.

In the Obama administration, Mr. Kirk would join New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, another free-trade advocate whom Mr. Obama has nominated to be Commerce secretary. Their pro-trade tilt would be at least partly offset by the anti-trade credentials of Rep. Hilda L. Solis, California Democrat, whom Mr. Obama is expected to name as Labor secretary.

U.S. trade deficits have totaled nearly $5 trillion since 2000. Mr. Obama's supporters from organized labor contend that these deficits have destroyed American jobs, damaged the U.S. economy and reduced the incomes of middle-class Americans.