Mr Pres, I'll believe your new commitment to the working class when "Free" Trade has been repealed..

[Union Yes]

and replaced with FAIR Trade laws and the practice of reimportation has been outright banned.

Reimportation is the practice of American corporations using foreign slave/serf/cheap labor to make that $9 coffee maker so it can be reimported into America and sold at Walmart.

Did you know 80% of the products on Walmart's store shelves are foreign made due to FT.

Repealing all Nafta's and GATT/WTO and banning reimportation could bring home as many as 40 million jobs.

Mr. Pres, I happen to like your new commitment to the working class. Put some teeth in it, give it some bite and make it meaningful by signing real change into law.

Jobs will be the #1 factor that brings out the voters in November. Or lack of job prospects will keep them home on election day in protest or boycott or utter DISGUST.

I'm one who is disgusted. Repealing NAFTA would make many of us disgusted folks into happy campers nearly overnight.

Barack, be a man of the people and we will write songs about you.

The voters will support and save you and your party from its impending demise.

[pampango]

1. OR Obama could push for "European style" social and economic policies rather than blame foreigners

for our problems. Stronger protections for unions and worker rights, the return of effective regulation of corporations and the financial industry, a progressive taxation system rather than tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, effective national health care, and a strong social safety net, would result in a "European" answer to our problems.

The French, British, Germans and other Europeans have more "free trade" than an American can conceive of. They have a 30-country "free trade" area with rich and poor countries, as well are "free trade" agreements with more distant countries, like Mexico. It works for them because they have progressive societies that protect their citizens. Progressives, who have achieved so much in Europe, don't just tolerate "free trade", they push it (and open immigration borders) within the continent as fundamental aspect of the European Union.

In Europe it is the far-right parties, like the British National Party (which most would agree is xenophobic at best and, more likely, outright racist at worst), that fight against European "free trade" and open borders. They promote the reimposition of tariffs and immigrations controls against other European countries. They also promote even stricter tariffs and immigration controls against non-European trade and immigration.

I realize that our efforts in unionization and worker rights, corporate regulation, progressive taxation, health care, and the social safety net, mean taking on our domestic PTB which always has been a difficult and lengthy process, not very satisfying in the short run. Taking on foreigners is much easier. Throughout history (not just in the US, but everywhere) an early indication of bad economic times is the reaction to kick out the immigrants (the "them" in the "us vs. them" construct) and tariff, quota or totally restrict imports from "their" countries (the Smoot/Hawley solution which, though it never works. is always a popular response since it is easier to blame "them" foreigners than to battle our own domestic PTB. Industrialists of the day even supported S/H since they thought it would enhance their domestic profits by limiting foreign competition and it shifted popular blame for our economic problems to "them" foreigners and away from the industrialists and other domestic PTB of the day.)

[BadgerKid]

5. That's interesting. The EU's main industry is services

at about 70% GDP and manufacturing is 30% GDP (source:https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union#Industries ). Shifting toward a service economy is what Reagan for one was talking about. I think in this country not enough is being done to limit preying by big business and politicians in general on the citizen.

[CynicalObserver]

6. Free trade isn't going anywhere, ever, unfortuantely

in our lifetimes. China, the largest trading partner of the US (I think, larger than canada), is also the largest creditor.

[anonymous171]

8. Europe is Europe. and America is America. You said it yourself, they are civilized

and we are not. Therefore, we cannot simply emulate their system. In Europe, the labor standards are all pretty much the same. Same with the wealth of each country. The Americas are radically unequal as far as national wealth is concerned. The Industrialists are irrelevant and have been for almost 50 years. The bankers are the big problem today. And they have absolutely no problem with free trade at all.

[Catshrink]

2. He talked a lot about the middle classes during the campaign season

Now? Still talking. Oh wait, we did have that little tiny tax break, didn't we. Oops, my bad.

[Broke In Jersey]

3. YEA!!!! 100% right!!!!

No one in D.C. gives a crap about the workers of this country. Obama would get an approval rating of 90% if he removed FREE trade and replaced it with FAIR trade.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Repealing NAFTA would do nothing about our primary source of job loss: China. nt

[upi402]

7. These Clinton Republicans are worse than outright Republicans

Like a Trojan horse of betrayal. effemall