What NAFTA Is:NAFTA and all the other so-called “free trade agreements” are in fact investor rights agreements. They make businesses operated by international investors substantially immune to local laws and regulations on health, safety, wages, hours, labor rights, antipollution, financial and other practices. They establish secretive extrajudicial courts with no appeal where corporations appoint the judges who can decide in favor of them. Obama, NAFTA, and Canada:Last spring, while Obama was stumping Ohio and Michigan giving the impression to voters that he indeed opposed NAFTA, because that’s what they wanted to hear, a key member of his campaign, assured Canadian consular officials that such rhetoric was nothing but “political positioning” and not to be taken seriously. , forcing the Obama campaign and the Canadians to issue a series of denials. Obama fans bitterly denounced those who fed the public suspicion that their candidate was a “FREE TRADER”. Later in the campaign, all but declared himself exactly that. But none are so blind, they say, as those who choose not to see.Apparently its was stories emanating from the Canadian press that caused the White House to confirm this week that NAFTA renegotiations are dead.“We’re obviously very delighted with this decision from the Americans,” Harper said as he wrapped his up a three-day working visit to Jamaica. “As you know, President Obama has been moving this way really since the primary campaign.”Again, it’s not the kind of thing Obama would say outright if not pressed, and American journalists are too timid of this or any president to ask inconvenient questions. In his first hundred days, which won’t be over for another week or two. President Obama is on his way to leaving a trail of broken promises and eviscerated hopes for change as high and deep as any of his predecessors. This is just one more.Harper delighted Obama won’t re-open NAFTAApr 20, 2009WASHINGTON (AP) — Softening President Barack Obama’s campaign-year tr