NORTH AMER­I­CAN UNION?

Oba­ma se­lects free-​trad­er to be U.S. trade rep­re­sen­ta­tive

Ron Kirk is Pres­i­dent-​elect Oba­ma's pick to be front-​man on Trade.

Kirk made his name in pol­i­tics serv­ing as may­or of Dal­las, where he was known as a staunch sup­port­er of Free Trade agree­ments, and NAF­TA in par­tic­u­lar.

He was a big pro­po­nent of the trade cor­ri­dor from Mex­i­co up through Texas, a road he once re­ferred to as a "NAF­TA Free­way".

His nom­i­na­tion was wel­comed by the U.S. Cham­ber of Com­merce, and the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Man­u­fac­tur­ers. Ad­vo­cates for a change in trade pol­i­cy are not so hap­py.

Lori Wal­lach (Glob­al Trade Watch):

There's clear­ly been a GAP be­tween Pres­i­dent-​elect OBA­MA's pledges to the Amer­i­can pub­lic to tru­ly trans­form our failed trade pol­i­cy, and some of the very im­por­tant eco­nom­ic ap­point­ments he's made to help im­ple­ment or at least sup­port the failed sta­tus quo.

[...]

Crit­ics say the ap­point­ment (of Kirk) falls in line with oth­ers by OBA­MA, and they don't like what they see.

BILL TUCK­ER:

Now, the ap­par­ent con­tra­dic­tion in OBA­MA's words and ac­tions has ac­tivists on an­oth­er front wor­ry. Last Febru­ary [2009] OBA­MA pledged that he would RE­SUME the Se­cu­ri­ty and Pros­per­i­ty Part­ner­ship talks be­tween Mex­i­co and Cana­da that Pres­i­dent Bush ini­ti­at­ed.

LOU DOBBS:

The old boss is start­ing to look a lot like the new boss when it comes to the is­sues of off-​shoring, Free Trade, this is trou­bling in­deed.

[Video down­load­ed from YouTube on 28 March 2009]