McCain knits trade, security issues
Foreign trips fit his strategy
MEXICO CITY - Democrats have derided John McCain for taking his free-trade message last week to meetings with the presidents of Colombia and Mexico instead of the factory floors of Michigan and Ohio, swing states where protectionist attitudes prevail, but the shift of venue was intentional.
McCain, who has repeatedly said that economics is not his strength, has unapologetically embraced free trade. But, demonstrating an approach that advisers say fits into a broader set of contrasts with his opponent's approach to international affairs, McCain is increasingly making the case to Americans that trade should be considered foremost as a national security concern.
"They're two different issues, but they're certainly linked in the eyes of our allies there," said McCain strategist Charlie Black, who noted that the trip offered an opportunity for McCain to address both at once while flanked by heads of state. "It shows him on the world stage talking confidently about international issues."
Two weeks ago, McCain visited Ottawa to trumpet his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement. Targeting Colombia and Mexico on last week's trip, McCain selected two countries that have recently elected conservative leaders in a region that has been drifting left. In both places, McCain praised local governments for their efforts combating drug trafficking and narco-terrorism.
McCain has presented the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, which remains stalled in Congress because of Democratic opposition, as a plum for the regime of President Alvaro Uribe, who has aggressively targeted the FARC, a guerrilla group whose activities have been funded by kidnappings and the cocaine trade.
On Tuesday, Uribe briefed McCain on highly classified details of a mission scheduled for the next day to rescue hostages, including three Americans held by the FARC.
Ratifying the trade pact would "help an ally that's standing up in a courageous way to prevent the drug trade . . . and provide a strategic counterpoint to Hugo Chávez," said Black, referring to the leftist Venezuelan president. Senator Barack Obama has said he would be willing to meet Chávez, provoking outrage from McCain.
"I certainly think that the government and people of Colombia should be rewarded for their sacrifices and their efforts," McCain told reporters in Cartagena, Colombia, on Wednesday, as the hostage rescue was taking place. "America could have no better ally than President Uribe. It is irresponsible for the Congress not to come to his aid and his support."
Both the Colombian pact and NAFTA remain highly controversial domestically, particularly in the industrial states where McCain has said that he intends to target working-class voters, including Democrats and union members who supported Hillary Clinton during the primaries.
Obama opposes the Colombian agreement and said that he supports the decade-old NAFTA, but would threaten to abrogate it as a means of exerting leverage over Canada and Mexico to add greater labor and environmental protections.
"Senator John McCain's trip to Colombia and Mexico is yet one more example of how out of touch he is with working families," John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president and an Obama supporter, said in a statement. "Working people have seen bad trade deals send their jobs overseas and decimate their communities, yet McCain enthusiastically supports the proposed US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement and celebrates the effects of NAFTA."
McCain, however, is speaking less about the economic benefits of free trade and instead trying to place it in a broader critique of Obama's foreign policy, contrasting the Democrat's willingness to negotiate with American adversaries with his disinterest in collaborating with friendly countries.
"The first step is to start to repair our image with some of our allies before we can begin to repair our image with those we disagree with," said John Brabender, an unpaid media adviser to McCain's campaign.
"I am disappointed at the suggestion that the United States should unilaterally reopen NAFTA," McCain told a business luncheon in Mexico City, after meeting privately with President Felipe Calderón on Thursday. "If there are issues that exist between our countries whether it be the United States, Canada, and Mexico, or other nations with whom we have engaged and ratified treaties the best way to do that is not in a unilateral fashion, but mutual respect of sovereignty of our respective nations."
McCain's attempt to emphasize the security benefits of free trade could be a hard sell: even advocates for expanded trade say that these days economic arguments are resonating most strongly, particularly as the weakened dollar has strengthened domestic producers and exporters.
"The United States is going through a slowdown, so the economic issues are coming up more and more," said Carolina Barco Isakson, Colombia's ambassador to the United States, who has been lobbying members of Congress to support the agreement.
No candidate in recent memory has made such broad support for free trade as central to his campaign as McCain. Those presidents who pushed for lowering the barriers to international commerce, Bill Clinton and both George Bushes, were far more ardent free traders once they reached office than they had presented themselves when seeking it.
By allying himself with free-trade agreements, which are negotiated by administrations and then subject to congressional approval, McCain is assuming a White House posture, according to analysts.
"In this environment, it has been a way to differentiate the candidates," said Michael Veseth, professor of international political economy at the University of Puget Sound. "Backing free trade is a presidential thing to do."
Throughout his foreign expedition, McCain mingled the trade and security items on his agenda, emphasizing visuals that do more to establish McCain's credibility as a commander in chief than a captain of economic growth.
On the same harbor tour Wednesday morning, McCain traveled in a drug interdiction boat operated by the Colombian Navy and examined the Caribbean port of Cartagena, a gateway for both American agricultural imports and the illicit northward passage of Colombian cocaine.
"I'm not sure this race is going to come down to a referendum on 'Who do you trust more on NAFTA?' " Brabender said. "What's most important is what the visuals are, not what the rhetoric is." 