WASHINGTON — With rising fervor, Sen. John Edwards has focused on the North American Free Trade Agreement to fuel his pursuit of Sen. John F. Kerry, stressing that the Democratic presidential front-runner supported the accord with Canada and Mexico while he opposed it.
But Edwards, a senator from North Carolina, has a far more nuanced record on international trade than his rhetoric would suggest, supporting some trade initiatives and opposing others during his five years in office.
Edwards hopes to keep up the pressure on Kerry and the trade issue as the campaign battleground shifts to industrial states like Ohio, which holds its primary March 2. There and elsewhere, NAFTA is a dirty word for many Democrats who blame it for job losses.
News accounts corroborate Edwards' assertion that he went public with his opposition to the accord during his successful initial run for the Senate in 1998 -- five years after NAFTA won congressional approval.
"I campaigned against it when I ran for the Senate," Edwards told reporters Wednesday.
Speaking of Kerry's support for NAFTA and other trade accords, he said: "We have very different records on trade.... Records matter."
For Edwards, criticism of NAFTA serves another political goal, reminding voters of his background as the son of a textile mill worker.
There is little evidence that he made NAFTA a major issue in his 1998 campaign -- in part, an Edwards aide said, because the Republican incumbent at the time also opposed the accord.
Nor has Edwards filled the Congressional Record with anti-NAFTA speeches since he took office in 1999. Lawmakers often give speeches for the Congressional Record, or insert them in writing, on topics near to their heart.
In his first major congressional vote on trade, Edwards voted for a controversial trade accord with China in September 2000 that was bitterly opposed by organized labor.
In 2002, he voted for the initial version of a bill to give President Bush sweeping authority to negotiate new trade deals. He opposed the final version after provisions protecting North Carolina textile workers were dropped.
One veteran free-trade lobbyist in Washington describes Edwards as a "soft" opponent of trade deals, one who is open to presidential arm-twisting.
"He's never had trade as a major issue on the Senate floor," the lobbyist said Wednesday. "The strength of his opposition to trade has risen with his presidential campaign."
