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Obama Heads to Canada Amid Trade Concerns

NAFTA issues likely to loom large over visit

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Feb 19, 2009 6:18 AM CST

(Newser) – Barack Obama makes his first foreign trip as president today to Canada, and his talks there are likely to touch on some thorny trade issues, the New York Times reports. Obama spoke forcefully in favor of reopening NAFTA while a candidate, but intends to focus on strengthening the US-Canada trade relationship in his discussions with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, according to advisers.

"It’s not in anybody’s interest" to see trade between the US and Canada diminish, the president told a Canadian interviewer this week as he promised to abide by NAFTA rules. Despite the potential for disagreements over trade and energy pacts, diplomats in both Washington and Ottawa expect the visit to go smoothly, and predict Obama and Harper will have a better rapport than their predecessors.

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A welcome banner is secured by activists on a bridge crossing the Ottawa River near Parliament Hill yesterday. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Adrian Wyld)

An image of President Obama is taped to a lamppost near Parliament Hill in Ottawa yesterday. Obama will make his first international trip to Canada today. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Adrian Wyld)

Workers set up a tarp under an archway at the main entrance on Parliament Hill under the Peace Tower in Ottawa Tuesday in preparation for President Obama's visit to Canada. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Tom Hanson)

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Barack Obama is interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, February 17 2009. (VOTERSTHINKdotORG)

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Canadians are free traders, they’re part of the global world. They would clearly resist efforts to be protectionist. And for a country where one-third of its GDP is exports to the US, can you blame them?
- Former US ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci

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Obama Heads to Canada Amid Trade Concerns