We now see reports that any trade reforms around NAFTA will be delayed by an Obama administration, due to the Economy.

After he becomes president in January, Obama will order a study on the world's largest trade agreement, then seek longer- term negotiations with Mexico and Canada on how to change it, according to three advisers, who spoke on condition that they not be identified. The recession, the collapsing auto industry, a record trade deficit with China and other issues are pushing Nafta aside, analysts and industry representatives said.

``There should be some adjustments made to Nafta, but it's going to take some time,'' said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a Washington-based group that represents the United Steelworkers union and steelmakers. ``There is an active crisis,'' he said, and labor advocates see the China issue as more important

Yet buried within this story is not a delay on trade negotiations but a focus on China.

Well, on this one I think we can all agree, the real problem is the China trade deficit. So note how the article is written, yet it's clear that the Obama team is not (yet anyway) reneging on the problem of renegotiating and creating better trade deals in the United States national and working America's interests but they are also tuning into the biggest problem and that is the China trade deficit.

Even worse, in Barrons:

Against the wishes of our neighbors, Mr. President-elect, you want to reopen the treaty to force Mexico and Canada to do more to promote labor unions and boost benefits so that higher-paid U.S. union workers can better compete with them.

Not only is this an attack on their sovereignty, it is a transparent attempt to shield union employees from competition from lower-paid, more productive foreign labor. We hope, as one of your advisers has implied, that you were not serious. Constraining free trade would do the economy far more harm than good.

Is this absurd? Since when is labor arbitrage, cheap labor part of the theory of free trade? It is not and in fact when one lets labor be mobile the theory of equilibrium and trade being a mutual benefit evaporates under most analysis (country dependent).

Still, still Wall street can't get it together to realize when one squeezes the working class, the middle class that destroys the entire economy.

The other sentence is laughable, an attack on their sovereignty. Excuse me, but what about all of that illegal immigration and the United States sovereignty? And isn't one of the main causes of these waves of illegal immigration economic destitution? That's right, if NAFTA helped the Mexican people and build a middle class we shouldn't even be in such a mess.

The only ones NAFTA is working for are multinational corporations and a few vested interests. It's not working for workings on any side of the border.