Free Trade

Does either candidate become specific about free trade? During the Democratic primaries their was a little bit of debate about free trade, specifically in regards to NAFTA but neither Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain has had much to say on the subject. Sen. McCain seems to be happy with how it is overall-in the grand scheme of things. He traveled to Colombia, Mexico, and Canada to tell them not to worry about him, he'll allow free trade without much interference.

Sen. Obama has said he'd want to renegotiate NAFTA at least publicly but has had campaign people tell Canada that its just rhetoric. In the Hardball College Tour with Chris Mathews he said we have to admit that the jobs already lost are never coming back. He said what we can and should do however is find other ways to create jobs; jobs that don’t require a four year college education but would require specific training. It was simplified down to "making big things with our hands". He mentioned building windmills and other industries. He said these jobs should be ones like their parents and the parents before them used to be. Jobs they're able to work at their entire life and raise their family on the wages and live a comfortable life. He has a couple of times also talked about how he'd like to utilize Community College's and State College's to re-train displaced workers and better train workers for the next generation of industries.

Since neither candidate speaks much about it or at least when they do it never makes TV or print media, here are their stances from their own web sites with Obama first, McCain second:

Trade
Obama believes that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs. He will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security.
Fight for Fair Trade: Obama will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. He will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement that fail to live up to those important benchmarks. Obama will also pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and no tariff barriers on U.S. exports.
Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement: Obama believes that NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.
Improve Transition Assistance: To help all workers adapt to a rapidly changing economy, Obama would update the existing system of Trade Adjustment Assistance by extending it to service industries, creating flexible education accounts to help workers retrain, and providing retraining assistance for workers in sectors of the economy vulnerable to dislocation before they lose their jobs.

Lower Barriers to Trade
John McCain believes that globalization is an opportunity for American workers today and in the future. Ninety-five percent of the world's customers lie outside our borders, and we need to be at the table when the rules for access to those markets are written. To do so, the U.S. should engage in multilateral, regional and bilateral efforts to reduce barriers to trade, level the global playing field and build effective enforcement of global trading rules.

Competitive American Workers
John McCain understands that globalization will not automatically benefit every American. We must prepare the next generation of workers by making American education worthy of the promise we make to our children and ourselves. We must be a nation committed to competitiveness and opportunity. We must fight for the ability of all students to have access to any school of demonstrated excellence. We must place parents and children at the center of the education process, empowering parents by greatly expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children. John McCain will overhaul unemployment insurance and make it a program for retraining, relocating and assisting workers who have lost a job. The unemployment insurance system created in the 1950s needs to be modernized to meet the goals of helping displaced workers make ends meet between jobs and moving people quickly on to the next opportunity. John McCain will reform the half-dozen training programs to approaches that can be used to meet the bills, pay for training, and get back to work. John McCain believes that we can strengthen community colleges and technical training, and give displaced workers more choices to find their way back to productive and prosperous lives.