Perhaps, but somehow I don't think folks look at the US opinions on trade when formulating their image of the US.  Actions like Iraq, aid to Africa and elsewhere, torture, humanitarian intervention, and things like that have a far greater impact.  The thing about trade is elites (who know better, take economics classes, enjoy cheap goods) think it's good, but it's an easy demon for anti-globalization advocates.  Pandering on NAFTA may hurt the US in Mexio and Canada, but I feel like it won't hurt US image abroad much.

Yes, I agree that the NAFTA pandering is unfortunate but you and others seem to skew this as a strictly Obama issue. I watched the debate in Ohio and I didn't notice Hillary taking any softer of a line on the renegotiate-or-cancel-within-six-months ultimatum. If anything she was more emphatic. Is it because you expect her to say anything to get elected with no threat of follow through and therefore immediately discount it while being afraid that he might actually mean it?

We've seen this foreign phenom before. In 1980 all the allies were eager to see the cowboy replace Jimmy Carter. Few of them wanted Bill Clinton to replace GHW Bush.

As I say, it's ridiculous to suppose that Obama's miraculous touch will cause divisions between us and other nations to disappear. Nations have interests. Their policies are driven by their understanding of those interests and how those hard cold interests are affected by our policy. Not sentiment, not by US rhetoric.

Also, it's almost nowhere reported but Bush has done a pretty good job vis-a-vis two huge and hugely important (re-)emerging Asian powers, India and Japan. No wonder Zakaria's Asian sources are getting nervous.

Yeah. When the French or English sit and bemoan what they see as the downfall of America, the first thing they point to is that our politicians want to renegotiate regional treaties.

Give me a break.

As soon as someone starts tossing around "humanity" I need to opan a window.  Same goes for  that old red herring about Bush "chainsawing" Kyoto.  In fact, Clinton and the Senate (95-0) had already chainsawed Kyoto.

For a refreshing take on free trade read Ha-Joon Chang's "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism."  Or see his talk:

rtsp://video.c-span.org/archive/arc_btv/btv_021008_chang.rm

I also don't think that people around the world hunger for free trade to the extent that they hunger changes in other US policies. Given the choice between a blindly pro-American foreign policy or pro-American economic policy, my guess is that the world would overwhelmingly choose the latter.

No, they won't. Anti-NAFTA Ohioans have no candidate to turn to.

It is frustrating, there clearly have been considerable ceteris paribus gains from trade, but the losers simply aren't compensated. There's been at least 15 years of blah blah blah about 'trade assistance' and 'retraining,' but what's clearly needed (and a zillion people have said this) is a safer social net, particularly wrt healthcare.

I don't think 22 year old Ohioans expect to necessarily 'work in factories' (although if the dollar keeps falling, maybe they should!) but there's been no good answer for the 52 year old Ohio (former) factory worker.

You have to wonder how much of the NAFTA rhetoric is about NAFTA and how much it's more broadly about free trade.  Clearly a lot of the talk on both sides have nothing to do with the actual agreement,  e.g. all the talk of factories being shut down and the machinery shipped over to China (it's been a while since I learned geography in school, but I'm pretty sure China is not part of North America).  Yet when pressed on the issue, both candidates have basically said that they want to keep NAFTA but change some of the specifics about how it's implemented.

If it's symptomatic of a broader protectionist ideology, then I think other countries have good reason to be worried.  If it's about the specifics of a trade agreement involving three countries, then I don't really see a cause for worldwide concern.

Mmathog is right. Retraining's bogus. Hasn't happened, won't happen. You want to help workers, then remove the healthcare albatross and fix the schools and give opportunities to the next generation of workers.

I spoke with McCain after his talk in San Jose last summer and asked him about his strategy for avoiding complete economic collapse in Detroit (I proposed the fed take over the Big 2.5's healthcare obligations inexch for much higher CAFE standards). McC's first comment was that retraining's a bad joke. He didn't bite on the health care swap notion, btw.

Depends what you mean by nations. Elites? Sure, they like free-traders. The masses? Somehow I don't think free trade is the measure by which they judge the U.S. So in a sense, both Tep and benjamin/vacentrist are correct. But I'd side more with the latter on this, because I think it's the masses people are talking about when they say the U.S. reputation has taken a hit abroad.

They're both free traders. As I say, if you believed all that crap about NAFTA---which only came up opportunistically and will vanish as soon as the Rust Belt is no longer the Great Decider---then you don't understand American politics.

If what we say in America reverberates around the world, and this was "potentially damaging," then maybe the rest of the world ought to invest in a bullshit detector.

I agree we have not done right by the losers in free trade.  However, that's not what HRC and BHO are talking about.  They want to tell other countries how to organize their societies - what labor/enviro standards they should (must) adopt.  Sort of a do as we say f-p.

And this is different than the Current Occupant how, exactly?  Besides, our "reputation" means squat in the world.  When Reagan called teh Sovs the Evil Empire, there was much the same hand-wringing about our "reputation."  As tep noted, India andJapan like us just fine, as do the Aussies.  We get on well with many countries, not that you'd know it hereabouts.

Indeed, nations have interests.  Let's pursue ours.

hey butchie, you haven't traveled abroad much the past few years have you? Everywhere you travel you can hear people laughing about how America is on the decline, and you know what, we are. America has gone from a fabulously wealthy dominant country to a slightly less fabulously wealthy dominant country, and it will continue this way for our lifetime. We have to get over ourselves. The sooner most Americans accept being American is a good thing but not evidence of any innate superiority the better.

Less arrogance would do us a world of good. But so would a lot more ruthlessness and chessmanship when it comes to playing off China vs Russia, India vs China, Japan vs China, South vs North etc.

Reform our economy, make ourselves as strong as we possibly can, and play the contenders (EU, China, Russia) off against each other wherever it serves our economic interests to do so. Different century now. Wilsonianism's dead. RIP