McCain faults Obama on trade

Jeff Mason

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain took a veiled swipe at Democratic rival Barack Obama over trade on Thursday in the final leg of a Latin American trip aimed at showcasing the Arizona senator's foreign policy credentials.

McCain, who has pledged not to play politics on foreign soil, has nonetheless used his visit to Colombia and Mexico this week to highlight his strong support for free trade and contrast that with the Illinois senator's position.

Obama opposes a trade deal with Colombia and has threatened to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which groups the United States, Canada and Mexico, if it is not altered to improve labour and environmental provisions.

After a meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, where the two leaders discussed immigration and drug trafficking, McCain criticized Obama, without naming him, for his position on NAFTA.

"I am disappointed at the suggestion that the United States should unilaterally reopen NAFTA," McCain told reporters.

"If there are issues that exist between our countries, whether it be the United States, Canada and Mexico, or other nations with whom we have engaged and ratified solemn treaties, the best way to do that is not in a unilateral fashion."

Obama said during his primary election battle against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton he would he would reopen NAFTA negotiations. But since winning his party's nomination, Obama has backed away from that position.

IMMIGRATION, DRUGS

McCain visited a basilica on Thursday morning and held a lunch with American and Mexican business leaders, where trade featured high on the agenda.

At a news conference in an airplane hanger, McCain touted his positions on immigration and praised an initiative to help stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.

"The United States of America and the country of Mexico must secure our borders. That will require some walls, it will require virtual fences," he said in response to a question about whether walls were needed on the U.S.-Mexican border.

He said the United States should create a temporary worker program, which he believed would dissuade people from crossing the border. "When it is known that people who come to our country illegally cannot get a job, that will then cut off the magnet that attracts people."

The U.S. Congress approved $400 million (202 million pounds) in aid last month to pay for drug smuggling surveillance equipment, the first instalment of the $1.4 billion "Merida Initiative" pledged by President George W. Bush when he met Calderon last year.

Mexico welcomed the aid, which will pay for new helicopters and surveillance devices, and said it showed Washington recognized narcotics trafficking is a shared problem.

"I believe that the Merida Initiative may be more important than any agreement that we've made," McCain said.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer, editing by Alan Elsner)

Immigration worries Hispanic delegates

Immigration worries Hispanic delegates

Web Posted: 06/13/2008 10:15 PM CDT

By Janet Elliott
Houston Chronicle

HOUSTON — As a son and grandson of men who came to the United States without documents, Joe Martinez has cringed at some of the red-hot talk about unauthorized immigration he has heard this week at the Republican State Convention.

“I'd love to see the rhetoric softened,” said Martinez, a 26-year-old from Mercedes who is attending his first state convention.

But he knows that this is a nation of laws, and so did his father and grandfather, who both became American citizens. And he's enthusiastic about being a Republican, proudly showing off his tan-and-blue cowboy boots, one signed by Rick Perry and the other by Ron Paul.

“Once people start to realize what Republican principles and values are, that's pretty much the way the culture lives its life: faith, love and self-dependence,” said Martinez, who works as a supervisor in a state program that provides attendants for homebound elderly and disabled people.

Hispanics have a small presence among the 6,000 delegates and alternates at the convention, a worrisome sign for the party's future. The momentum provided by President Bush's popularity among Hispanics could stall out in the face of the party's hard-line stand against amnesty for unauthorized immigrants.

Republicans took over state government, beginning in the late 1980s, by growing their base at the local level, particularly in suburban areas.

But it can be difficult to recruit candidates to run as Republicans in heavily Hispanic areas when the GOP affiliation is often a “death warrant,” said Hector Farias, 41, of Weslaco.

Just as U.S. Sen. John McCain and Bush have supported a pathway to citizenship for some unauthorized immigrants, convention delegates are split on the issue.

“We're for securing the border,” said Ruben Jimenez, whose family has been in Texas for 150 years. “In order to be a good citizen, you've got to obey the law.”

But Martinez can't forget a scene he witnessed when he was 12: a frightened, hungry family of four hiding in a cemetery on his family's ranch. Just as his father took food to the man, woman and children, he is looking for compassion and compromise by his party on the emotional issue.

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