John McCain On Free Trade

John McCain is bullish on free trade. The country isn't. Yet McCain doesn't miss many opportunities to reproach Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama's emerging opposition to international trade deals.

McCain is such an avowed free trader that he is scheduled to address the Economic Club of Canada next week in Ottawa to assert his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Such an appearance helps McCain burnish his foreign policy credentials. But trade can also carry great risks, especially in election battlegrounds such as Ohio and Pennsylvania where many voters blame trade deals for job losses.

Canadian officials are watching the election attentively, too. Obama, who four years ago declared NAFTA had been beneficial, recently talked about reopening NAFTA to strengthen enforcement of labor and environmental standards. McCain has been thumping Obama on that, arguing that such a step not only would hurt trade, but undermine the credibility of the United States abroad.

"You know what message that sends? That no agreement is sacred to him," McCain told reporters Thursday in Boston.

News poll conducted mostly in April found that most Americans have a negative view of trade agreements.

Of those polled, 64 percent said that increasing trade between the United States and other countries has hurt the economy, while just 22 percent said it has helped. Moreover, 54 percent opposed the federal government negotiating new agreements with other countries, as opposed to 43 percent who favored more agreements, though Republicans tended to be evenly split on the question.