Originally posted by lagas:
Look, its not only canadians, it's the whole world who wants the US to choose Obama as president. After 8 years of complete disaster in every major issue (except, I must say, AIDS fight in the world), everybody will welcome change in the White House.
there are at least two issues that should be addressed here- 1) i agree that there are a lot of people around the world who want obama to become president because he is viewed as more enlightened, and believe that his foreign policy will be different. . .i don't dispute that contention...
however, 2) i believe that trade will become a sticking point, and that an obama administration, coupled with a congress hell-bent on using populism to suck the life out of free-market capitalism, by throwing up trade barriers and insisting on unreasonable terms for trade treaties, will cause increased havoc. the world is heavily integrated (as friedman calls it, the world is flat), and as much as obama and congress would like to, we can't simply raise tariffs and block foreign trade because that's not how the world works anymore. free trade and agreements bringing down trade barriers are essential to the continued economic growth of not just the u.s., but of the rest of the world. and having obama threaten to pull out of NAFTA or attempt to re-negotiate NAFTA would be a terrible decision; whatever we think we can get, Canada and Mexico are more than happy to take something else away. As I posted yesterday, there is concern in India about trade, there is also concern in
europe about trade. . .
of course, i dispute the contention that we should make our decisions based on what the world thinks- foreign intervention in american politics was a great concern of the founding fathers, and it is clear that it is still a concern today.
