On matters of economic policy, in particular, candidate Obama had been remarkably elusive, melding caution, calculation, and a reluctance to commit with countervailing doses of motivational rhetoric and enigmatic flair. Against the jaded theory of trickle-down economics, Obama promised an alternative, 'bottom-up economics,' founded on a principle central to his campaign, that of economic justice: 'trade deals like NAFTA,' Obama argued during the campaign, 'have been signed with plenty of protections for corporations and their profits, but none for our environment or our workers.' In a revealing moment, in an otherwise meticulously managed election campaign, some of this talk was however shown to be duplicitous. A commitment to renegotiate the NAFTA treaty was a guaranteed applause line at blue-state campaign stops in Ohio and Michigan, but Obama's senior economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, had privately assured Canadian consulate officials that this was merely primary politics, not policy. The leak of a consular memo to this effect caused Goolsbee, on leave from the University of Chicago, some moments of discomfort, but the affair soon blew over. It was later suggested that the story was fabricated, or that misinformation had come from the Hillary Clinton campaign, but wherever the truth lies, renegotiating NAFTA is clearly not an Obama Administration policy, let alone priority.
Jamie Peck, Constructions of Neoliberal Reason
The Obama campaign used anti-trade deal rhetoric on the campaign trail and then lied about it when they were faced with business opposition
