CKUA

[Tackler]

NAFTA reality will soon set in - By MICHAEL DEN TANDT

There's an old saying, often repeated during the great debates over free trade 20 years ago, that conservative America will never allow Canada to become the 51st state. That's because, by inclination and tradition, most Canadians are Democrats. With an additional 30 million of them going to the polls, the Republicans would never win another election.

That notion is all the more relevant now as we grapple for the first time with the likelihood of a Barack Obama presidency. This week we see him and Hillary Clinton both, while campaigning in Ohio, railing against the North American Free Trade Agreement and vowing to rip it up. Coming in a Canada-U.S. border state, that's a clear swipe at Canada.

Both Clinton and Obama say they want the deal renegotiated. Obama's platform has contained this tidbit for months: "Obama believes that NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers."

To say that NAFTA was or has ever been oversold, as an economic policy, is hogwash. NAFTA was the signature achievement of the Brian Mulroney Conservatives and it was a great achievement, seedy Karlheinz Schreiber dealings notwithstanding. Since Canada-U.S. free trade went into effect in 1989, bilateral trade between the two countries has tripled. That translates directly into jobs for Canadians.

BENEFIT TO U.S.

But the real story, from a U.S. electoral point of view, is the one Obama and Clinton deliberately ignore. Free trade has been hugely beneficial to U.S. workers, too. For 36 of 50 U.S. states, Canada is the leading export market. That includes all the powerful border states -- Ohio, Michigan, New York. But it also includes some states you might not expect -- Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee, South Carolina.

In 2006, according to Canadian government data, Ohio alone exported $18 billion worth of merchandise to Canadian customers. A big chunk of that was in transportation and metal products, related to the auto industry. We bought $3.4 billion worth of their auto parts, and $2.1 billion worth of their cars. And here's another interesting tidbit: In 2006 Ohio imported $4.2 billion worth of Canadian crude oil.

Of course, Ohio isn't the only state that needs Canadian energy, as Industry Minister David Emerson pointed out Wednesday. At last count, Canada provided about 18% of the United States' foreign oil supply -- more than any other source including Saudi Arabia, which provides about 15%. Canada accounts for almost all of the United States' natural gas imports, which are critical to, among other things, keeping lights on in California.

Net result? As Emerson not so subtly intimates, a future President Obama won't want to keep his promise of tearing up NAFTA, because the pact is integral to U.S. economic health and energy security. The Americans need free trade at least as much as we do. Obama is trading in campaign rhetoric. In policy terms it's meaningless.

It's also a timely reminder that, for all his charm, this is still just a man and a politician, bent on achieving great power. If elected, he'll become the most powerful human on Earth and as different from you or me as toads are from toadstools. Power will temper and change him, just as it did long ago to a bright, charismatic young Englishman named Tony Blair.