IS HE A CLINTON OR A HOOVER?:

Obama is playing with fire on trade (ANDRES OPPENHEIMER, October 21, 2008, THE MIAMI HERALD)

If Obama is a closet protectionist, as the McCain camp claims, that would entail huge risks for the global economy.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was sparked by a 1929 stock market collapse, but really turned into a global depression after the United States passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act on June 17, 1930, which raised U.S. customs duties for imports by up to 50 percent.

The tariff increases were aimed at helping domestic companies and generating jobs at home. Instead, other countries responded in kind, international trade plummeted by 33 percent over the next three years, U.S. exports collapsed and U.S. unemployment rose at record levels.

The lesson is clear: Adopting protectionist measures in a recession is playing with fire, McCain supporters (and many Obama fans, too) say.

My opinion: I don't think Obama is a protectionist. The two times I interviewed him, he almost jumped from his seat when I asked him if he's anti-free trade. Like Bill Clinton before him, he would most likely switch to a more pro free-trade stance once in office.

What worries me is whether Obama would have the guts to go against the growing protectionist mood in the country at a time when America needs to open new export markets more than ever. A new Zogby poll shows that 59 percent of Americans support either revising or withdrawing from NAFTA.

And I wonder whether Obama would spend his political capital trying to persuade a Democratic-controlled Congress to support free trade.