I’m kind of surprised we haven’t heard more about this, though I guess it could have been overwhelmed by the swine flu madness and all the other news this week.

Last week, President Obama basically said he has “no present plans” to reopen NAFTA, something he “vowed to do during his campaign,” as The New York Times reported.

During the Democratic primary in Ohio last March, this was a huge issue between Clinton and Obama. It seemed like they were both competing to see who could oppose NAFTA more.

As the story points out, this is “a politically popular position in some electorally important Midwestern states that have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs.” That’s a bit of an understatement.

I’m puzzled as to why the labor and environmental groups quoted in this story don’t seem to be that upset.

Apparently because of this NAFTA stance, Ohio’s Democratic Senator, Sherrod Brown, has called for an extensive review of our nation’s trade policies.

-KG

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