Canadian and Mexican observers pay close attention to the hotly contested race for the White House, particularly as Democrats step up attacks on NAFTA.
The U.S. presidential race has prompted record-setting voter turnout and galvanized international observers. With issues such as border security, immigration, and trade serving as some of the top issues dominating campaign trail talk, the race has the United States’ neighbors hooked. Mexico’s El Universaland Reforma have launched website sections and blogs dedicated to the White House race. In Canada, a February poll conducted by a Toronto-based firm found that 15 percent of Canadians would be willing to give up their vote at home to participate in the U.S. presidential election. A Vancouver Sun feature takes a look at “Obamamania” in Canada, where those following the elections favor Democratic candidates over Republicans by a large margin.
Yet, after Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama proposed renegotiating the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during a February 26 Ohio Democratic debate, Canadian officials reacted with concern. Prime Minister Stephen Harper called reopening NAFTA “a mistake." Federal Trade Minister David Emerson suggested that a reexamination of the trade pact would put Washington’s priority access to Canadian oil back on the renegotiation table. Canada serves as the top supplier of energy to the United States; the Canadian government provides an overview of U.S.-Canada energy relations by sector.
Mexico has reacted similarly to the candidates’ remarks about the nearly 15-year-old trade pact. The Democrats' debate occurred on the eve of ministerial-level meeting in Los Cabos with officials from all three countries. While there, Secretary of Economy Eduardo Sojo said Mexico has no intentions of reopening NAFTA negotiations, which, according to official statistics, has helped create five million jobs in his country.
Pundits and the press say NAFTA has taken center stage as the Democratic candidates fight for a March 4 primary victory in Ohio, a state that suffered large numbers of manufacturing job losses since the time of the deal’s 1994 implementation. A USA Today online debate argues that making NAFTA the scapegoat serves as “cheap pandering” and that improved productivity has played a major role in U.S. manufacturing job losses. But the Democratic candidates’ anti-NAFTA rhetoric may represent more than just politics at play; both senators voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005.
Aside from the lingering questions of NAFTA negotiations, border issues remain a top issue for both Canada and Mexico. As the Economist notes, stepped-up security has slowed travel and business at the U.S.-Canada border. Yet, because crime and migration serve as bigger campaign issues, “Canadian officials do not expect their American counterparts to push hard for free trade or unsnagging the border.”
In an editorial for El Universal, Zacatecas Governor Amalia D. García Medina writes about the growing importance of Latinos and the Mexican community in the U.S. elections, and that all of the main candidates “have openly expressed their backing of immigration reform.” She also points to scenes of Clinton eating tacos in Los Angeles and a YouTube video of a corrido about Obama as signs of new emphasis on capturing the Hispanic vote in the United States.
