OTTAWA (AFP) — US Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday told a Canadian audience he would fiercely defend the North American Free Trade Agreement which has been criticized by his Democratic rival.
"We have to defend it (NAFTA) without equivocation in political debate, because it is critical to the future of so many Canadian and American workers and businesses," McCain told a sold out Economic Club of Canada luncheon at the historic Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel, steps from parliament.
"Demanding unilateral changes and threatening to abrogate an agreement that has increased trade and prosperity is nothing more than retreating behind protectionist walls," he said in an apparent jab at Democratic rival Barack Obama.
"If I am elected president, have no doubt that America will honor its international commitments -- and we will expect the same of others," he said.
NAFTA moved to the center of the US presidential politics earlier this year when Obama assailed the free trade pact in public, but his campaign privately defended it to Canadian officials, according to a leaked Canadian memo.
The affair embarrassed Canada's diplomatic corps and may have cost Obama votes in March's crucial Ohio and Texas primaries, at a time when the campaign by his rival Hillary Clinton was on the upswing.
In a teleconference on Friday, the Obama campaign said "absolutely ... Barack Obama will reopen negotiations on NAFTA" to add tougher environmental and labor rules.
Otherwise, said Senator Sherrod Brown, an Obama administration "could" withdraw the United States from NAFTA.
"I have been assured by him and his economic advisor," said Brown. "There is no question, his position is constant and will stay that way on the North American free trade (pact) and on trade generally," he said.
Noting the close ties between the United States and Canada, McCain said in his speech, "trade is just a part of what unites us, but a very important part."
"And if I have anything to say about it after January of next year, America is going to expand these ties of friendship and cooperation between our two nations."
McCain also said he would as president "listen carefully to close allies when they offer their counsel" and "seek it out" when they don't, while in a statement castigated Obama for his "unilateral" demands to tweak NAFTA.
Brown countered that the Arizona senator, instead of touting free trade in Canada's capital, "should come to Ottawa, Ohio," where now sits an empty television manufacturing plant that relocated to Mexico.
Free trade, and NAFTA in particular is a fiercely contentious issue in some states such as midwestern Ohio, which has been badly hit by the flight of blue collar jobs abroad, and increased global economic competition.
In a televised debate in Ohio in March, Obama said if the next US president is a Democrat, Mexico and Canada would be pressured to renegotiate NAFTA.
The 1994 trade pact created the largest trading bloc in the world by eliminating import tariffs on goods circulating among partners Canada, the United States and Mexico.
In his speech, McCain said Canada and the United States should build on the successes of NAFTA and further harmonize their energy policies, calling it "a top priority" of his presidency, if elected.
"We stand much to gain by harmonizing our energy policies, just as we have gained by cooperating in trade through NAFTA," he said, noting that Canada is already the top energy exporter to the United States.
McCain also touted a "sensible" US cap-and-trade emissions systems to curb global warming, and vowed to close the Guantanamo prison, which most Canadians disfavor.
Later, McCain was expected to meet with Canada's Foreign Minister David Emerson and retiring Chief of the Defense Staff, General Rick Hillier.
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