Clinton Memo on Trade Policy

From the Clinton campaign:

Today, Sen. Obama will attack Hillary on NAFTA:
You know, in the years after her husband signed NAFTA, Senator Clinton would go around talking about how great it was and how many benefits it would bring.

Sen. Obama and his campaign have consistently fabricated quotes to support this claim. Recently he falsely claimed that Hillary said that NAFTA was a "boon" to the economy. Now, Obama is resting his argument on a single paraphrase from an article written twelve years ago.

Meanwhile, based on his positions in Illinois and the United States Senate, the National Journal concluded that Sen. Obama was "the most likely presidential candidate to support further trade liberalization." Sen. Obama opposed an amendment that would have prevented the weakening of laws that protect against unfair trade practices. (Hillary supported the amendment.) Sen. Obama also supports fast track authority.

Sen. Obama also misrepresents Hillary's position on trade moving forward:

Now that she's running for President, she says we need a time-out on trade. No one knows when this time-out will end. Maybe after the election.

Hillary has called for a timeout on trade agreements in the first several months of her presidency to provide an opportunity to systematically review every trade agreement to ensure that it is delivering benefits to American workers." The time-out will begin when she becomes president. This is consistent with legislation she introduced in the Senate that would require study of the impact of trade agreements. She has also pledged to double the enforcement staff at the office of the United States Trade Representative and expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance program so that workers negatively affected by the global economy get the help they need.