As a candidate for president in 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama made an appeal to progressive voters when he said he wanted to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.
As president, Obama is having a tough time selling fellow Democrats on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement that includes mostly Asian countries, but also America's two NAFTA partners.
"There was coverage about the president’s promise to essentially renegotiate NAFTA," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday. "The fact is that both Mexico and Canada are part of this agreement and this agreement would actually raise the labor and environmental standards beyond what they currently are as codified in NAFTA to a higher standard. I actualy think that the president following through on a promise he did make, I guess that was seven years ago now."
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Earnest said he is confident Obama would have supported the TPP as Democratic member of the Senate.
"The president’s view of this has been pretty consistent," Earnest said.
