"The American economy cannot be closed off and shut down to the world," said strategist Steve Schmidt. "No matter how appealing a poll may suggest that policy is, it's demagogic, and Sen. Obama is engaging in it. It's unfortunate, because it is not a serious path to growing the economy."
McCain has supported every major piece of trade legislation since 2001. Obama, who voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005, has backed bilateral trade agreements since he was elected to the Senate in 2004. Schmidt said he is "trying to have it both ways" by opposing some trade agreements but making the case that he is a free trader.
McCain pounced on the issue this year after Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to renegotiate NAFTA. In a February debate, Obama said the United States should "use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced."
That week, McCain told reporters that his opponents' willingness to unilaterally change the treaty would send "the wrong message to the world" and could prompt Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, where they are fighting alongside U.S. forces.
The next month in Youngstown, Ohio, McCain suggested that Clinton and Obama were sounding "the siren song of protectionism," which he said would have devastating effects on the economy.
McCain's campaign contended that Obama softened his tone this week as an acknowledgment that he went too far in the primary. In Fortune magazine, Obama agreed with his interviewer that rhetoric on NAFTA was "overheated and amplified" and stressed that he would open a dialogue with Canada and Mexico to make NAFTA "work for all people."
On the Canada trip, the McCain campaign will also have a chance to draw attention to an embarrassing episode for Obama this year when one of his aides told Canadian officials not to pay attention to the Illinois senator's rhetoric on NAFTA.
Daniel Griswold, director of the pro-trade Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, argued that McCain's position on trade "isn't going to win him a big chunk of votes, but it isn't going to lose him votes either." He continued: "People talk a lot about trade. They have a lot of opinions, but it doesn't seem to sway many votes."
If McCain is persuasive about the broader economic impact of pulling back from trade agreements, Griswold said, voters may see Obama's earlier position as "irresponsible."
