Bush Boosts Battered NAFTA at Summit

President Bush yesterday opened a two-day economic summit in New Orleans with Mexico and Canada amid growing hostility to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is widely blamed for US job losses. Bush is using the meeting with the trillion-dollar trading partners to highlight support for NAFTA as the 14-year-pact is repeatedly roasted on the Democratic campaign trail.

"We want to find ways to convince the American people that this is an arrangement that's worked for us and it's also worked for our neighbors," said a White House spokesman. "It's a win-win situation." (More NAFTA stories.)