Trade issue close to home for Edwards

ATLANTA -- Senator John Edwards never misses a chance to tell people he is the "son of a mill worker," recalling the days before many manufacturing jobs in the South were sent overseas.

And to draw a sharp distinction between himself and Democratic front-runner John F. Kerry, Edwards often reminds audiences he opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, while Kerry voted to pass it -- setting in motion new economic forces that labor leaders believe have cost Americans jobs.

But as Kerry is quick to point out, Edwards never had to vote on NAFTA; he was still working as a lawyer then. And during his five years in the Senate, Edwards has been more flexible on trade than his rhetoric suggests: In 2000, he supported solidifying trade relations with China, swayed by technology, furniture, textile and tobacco firms in his home state of North Carolina who sought to sell their products to Chinese consumers. His North Carolina GOP colleague, Republican Senator Jesse Helms, opposed it.

Two years later, Edwards initially backed giving President Bush broad "fast-track" powers to negotiate future trade agreements. Only when a provision protecting the textile industry was stripped out did Edwards oppose it.

Yesterday, as a war of words over trade practices heated up on the campaign trail, Edwards described trade as a "moral issue" during a speech in New York.

Noting that US firms have sought intellectual property rights abroad, Edwards said: "We're asking that human rights be taken just as seriously."

The Kerry campaign fired back almost immediately. In an e-mail labeling Edwards "Mr. Johnny Come Lately on Trade," the Kerry campaign pointed out that Edwards did not highlight trade in a major economic speech last year. A separate Kerry memo accused Edwards of changing his mind four times on fast-track, noting that Edwards "voted FOR the China trade deal, even while acknowledging that he thought jobs would be lost."

Edwards has a slightly higher rating from the AFL-CIO than Kerry -- and labor leaders have suggested he is more in synch with their views on trade than Kerry. But Kerry has a solid rating from labor unions overall, and the AFL-CIO looked past his NAFTA vote yesterday in announcing its support for Kerry, whom they see as more electable.

The one labor union that backs Edwards so far is UNITE, the union representing garment and textile workers, whose 90,000-plus active New York members may help him in that state's March 2 primary vote. The group's chief economist said Edwards's focus on trade, however new, was enough to persuade members to support the North Carolina senator. "He said he opposed NAFTA and made it the centerpiece of his campaign," said Mark Levinson, the chief economist. "He's admitted he made a mistake on China and we think it's important that these issues be highlighted."

Levinson added: "Whatever Kerry's problems are [on trade], he's infinitely preferable to Bush. But in a comparison of these two Democrats on this issue, we think Edwards is closer to us."

At the same time, Edwards believes his working-class roots will enable him to connect with rank-and-file members of other unions, many of whom deeply resent NAFTA and other free trade deals. And it is unclear whether the AFL-CIO endorsement will be followed by money from members, or will be mostly symbolic; union support did almost nothing for Howard Dean and Richard A. Gephardt in Iowa, and both have since quit the race.

Kerry and Edwards have nearly identical positions on future trade deals: They would insist that enforceable human rights, labor, and environmental standards be written into the body of any agreement. However, their records do differ. Edwards has recently voted against trade deals with Chile, Singapore, the Caribbean, and Africa, while Kerry supported them all.

Speaking in New York City yesterday morning, Edwards set forth his guiding principles on trade, saying every future agreement would have to create US jobs, contain human rights and environmental protections, and contain mechanisms to punish nations flouting those rules.

But on the major trade accords of the recent past, Edwards's record is hardly that of an antitrade firebrand, as the China and fast-track examples illustrate. In those two cases, local trade concerns -- driven by the powerful North Carolina textile industry -- shaped his ultimate positions.

Edwards never publicly commented on NAFTA when it was pending before Congress. In 1998, as Edwards ran for the Senate, he said he had "serious reservations" about NAFTA when asked by reporters, but rarely spoke out against it unprompted. With the North Carolina economy humming along back then, NAFTA and trade were not big political issues.

In the Wisconsin primary, Edwards outperformed Kerry among voters who said jobs and the economy were the top issue. His free trade bashing has grown more pronounced over the last two weeks, and when asked to distinguish himself from Kerry, it is the first topic he cites.

For Edwards, trade has been first and foremost a local issue.

Last summer, Gephardt, the Missouri Democratic congressman who recently dropped out of the race, criticized Edwards for supporting the China trade deal. At the time, a mass closing of 16 textile plants had enraged many in North Carolina.

But in 1999, just before the China trade deal, North Carolina businesses sold $245.2 million in products to China, the state's 16th-largest foreign customer.

In addition, Edwards said at the time that exposure to trade would help democratize China.

Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.