OTTAWA -- U.S. President Barack Obama may turn out to be far better for Canadian free trade and economic interests than candidate Barack Obama ever pretended to be, experts on both sides of the border agree.
Obama -- triumphant Nov. 4 in his bid to become America's first-ever black president-elect -- was far from neighborly in his pronouncements affecting Canada during the campaign.
At times, he sounded stridently protectionist and even hinted he might tear up the NAFTA trade agreement to protect industrial jobs in hard-hit parts of the U.S. industrial heartland.
But even if he meant it at the time -- and an Obama adviser confided to Canadian officials he didn't -- most analysts say opening up or scrapping the most successful trade deal in history is not in the cards.
"Canada can live very well with a president Obama," says Thomas d'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, representing the country's largest companies.
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"I've watched many elections in the U.S. and what is said in a campaign and what comes out of the Oval Office are often very different."
NAFTA
The nearly 20-year-old Canada-U.S. trade deal, expanded to include Mexico in the mid-1990s, has proved successful for all three countries, with expanded trade flows across their borders. However, critics in the U.S. say it has led to lost jobs in that country.
Meanwhile, critics in Canada worry about the increased dependence of Canadian industry on the American market and rising U.S. protectionism that has led to curbs on Canadian softwood lumber, wheat and other products in the United States.
Former U.S. ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin says Obama has talked about strengthening the environmental and labor side agreements to the trade deal "and these are not issues with Canada, (but) they may be issues with Mexico."
"The NAFTA debate is much ado about nothing," he adds. "The issue is what to do going forward" about tackling the thickening border, environmental cooperation and labor mobility between the three countries.
Even if Obama were seriously thinking of opening up NAFTA, which would pose practical, political hurdles, his hand likely would be stayed by the provision in the trade deal that gives the U.S. access to valuable Canadian oil production.
In Obama's list of priorities, weaning the U.S. off dependence on Middle East oil trumps rust-belt jobs that likely aren't returning anyway, says Alan M. Rugman, a professor of international business at Indiana University who has written extensively on the continental trade deal.
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And for that, he needs NAFTA in place, he says.
"The energy program is a top priority, so very speedily an Obama administration will state how valuable NAFTA is in guaranteeing Canadian energy supplies," he explains.
"Besides, I think Canadians have been tipped off that NAFTA is secure," he adds, referring to the confidential assurance from an Obama aide that caused a stir in both countries last winter.
D'Aquino says he does expect an Obama administration would seek to strictly enforce current trade deals -- if only to give some ballast to his soaring campaign rhetoric -- but adds that would not negatively affect Canadian interests.
