Trade may fade as issue in presidential race

By Doug Palmer - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Edwards' departure from the presidential race removes one of the shrillest critics of globalization and gives the Democratic Party's two remaining contenders more room to maneuver on trade.

Edwards follows a long line of presidential aspirants whose barbed views on trade have energized supporters but possibly prevented them from gaining the nomination they sought.

The former South Carolina senator blamed the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization for millions of lost U.S. manufacturing jobs, stagnant U.S. wages and "larger and larger trade deficits."

"Washington insiders have looked at every trade deal and asked one, and only one, question: Is it good for corporate profits," Edwards said.

Democratic presidential rivals Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have been milder in their criticism, although both say they would push for changes in the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, to strengthen its labor and environmental provisions and not rush into new trade pacts.

"Edwards is definitely more of a trade basher than Obama and Clinton," said Ed Gresser, trade policy director for the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank that advocates both open markets and stronger programs to manage problems caused by globalization.

"It may be that this kind of anti-trade rhetoric has some salience and appeal when people run for Congress but up to now it's been a negative thing when they run for president," said Gresser, whose new book, "Freedom From Want," partly sketches a history of American trade politics.

The last president who was elected after running a campaign critical of trade was a Republican, Herbert Hoover, who signed the infamous Smoot-Hawley bill that raised tariffs in 1930 -- an act that many economists believe was at least partly responsible for that decade's Great Depression.