Bush receives backing from Canada, Mexico on trade push

Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ate the family style breakfast at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant which was flooded by 4 feet (1.2 meters) of water during Hurricane Katrina. The establishment, a gathering place for black musicians and politicians in the 1960s, is owned by Leah Chase, known as the “Queen of Creole Cuisine.”

Bush, stymied by Congress in his final push to broaden U.S. trade, is getting a blast of support from north and south of the U.S. border. In meetings throughout the day, Bush will defend the economic benefits of trade and tout efforts to make traveling across borders less of a hassle.

To no surprise, this year’s North American summit is not expected to produce any bold agreements. Instead, the leaders were expected to wind up with a statement of cooperation on important but bureaucratic areas, like disaster response and recalls of unsafe products.

Bush showed up here well aware of a rising anti trade sentiment, whether in Congress, on the election campaign trail of the Democrats who want his job, or among a disaffected work force.

“All of us want to make sure we’re treated fairly, and we can do that,” Bush said after meeting with Harper and Calderon individually. “This summit comes at an opportune time to reaffirm the benefits of the trading arrangements between our three nations.”

Bush wants Congress to ratify free trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

For his part, Calderon offered a strong defense of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the three-country deal reached during the Clinton administration that removed barriers to trade and investment. Bush credited the agreement with creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, improving choices for consumers and slowing the flow of job-seeking migrants from Mexico to the United States.

It so happens that the summit closes on the same day as the pivotal Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, an event sure to grab more attention. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, both have threatened to pull the U.S. out of NAFTA as a means to get Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the terms.

In brief remarks to reporters, the Canadian prime minister praised his relationship with Bush, which he called frank and productive. “The president has never promised me anything he couldn’t deliver, and that’s always appreciated,” Harper said.

The backdrop for all this feel-good sentiment was New Orleans. Bush picked the site to showcase the city’s rebound from the devastating Hurricane Katrina.

“I wanted to send a clear signal to the people of my country that New Orleans is open for business,” Bush said at the reopening of the Mexican consulate, shuttered a few years before the hurricane struck as a cost-saving measure by Mexican officials.

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