Protectionist Pandering Threatens to Raise Gas Prices

Conn Carroll / February 29, 2008

Promises by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to threaten Canada with unilateral rescission of NAFTA are not going over well up north. During the Democratic debate Tuesday night Hillary Clinton said she would tell Canada and Mexico: “We will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiate it and we renegotiate on terms that are favorable to all of America.” Obama chimed in: “I think actually Senator Clinton’s answer on this one is right.”

Canada is taking those unilateral threats seriously and has warned theU.S. that access to its oil and natural gas could be in jeopardy if a new administration backtracks on any NAFTA commitments. One Canadian diplomat told the Financial Times: “If NAFTA is ripped up then the Chinese can buy more of our oil; there’s no further obligation on the part of Canada to sell its oil to the US.”