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Obama Promotes Free Flowing Trade

During his visit to Canada last week President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed an agreement to work toward developing clean energy technology. Obama said, the agreement will advance carbon reduction technologies. It will also support the development of an electric grid that can help deliver the clean and renewable energy of the future to homes and businesses, both in Canada and the United States.

While there, the President also said his election-year promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement will have to wait and also warned against a strong impulse toward protectionism while the world suffers a global economic recession. Obama said he wants to find a way to toughen NAFTA's labor and environmental standards but stressed that nothing should disrupt the free flow of trade between neighbors.

"We've got to be very careful about any signals of protectionism," Obama said. "As the economy of the world contracts, I think there's going to be a strong impulse on the part of constituencies in all countries to see if we - they can engage in beggar-thy-neighbor policies."