(Adds details from Obama's speech to Canadian Parliament)
By Roberta Rampton and David Ljunggren
OTTAWA, June 29 (Reuters) - Canada, the United States and
Mexico on Wednesday mounted a fierce defense of free trade,
vowing to deepen economic ties despite an increasingly
acrimonious debate about the value of globalization.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Enrique
Pena Nieto also took swipes at U.S. Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump, who has vowed to renegotiate or scrap
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if he wins
November's election.
"The integration of national economies into a global
economy: that's here, that's done," Obama told a news conference
at the end of a summit dubbed the "Three Amigos".
"And us trying to abandon the field and pull up the
drawbridge around us is going to be bad for us," he said after
the talks, hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trump says free trade has been disastrous, costing thousands
of U.S. jobs and depressing wages.
Similar complaints were heard in Britain ahead of a surprise
referendum vote last week to leave the European Union and its
free trade area.
Obama and Pena Nieto stressed the importance of the
relationship between their countries, which has come under
strain amid heated U.S. campaign rhetoric.
"Isolationism cannot bring prosperity to a society," Pena
Nieto said after bilateral talks with Obama.
Later, at the news conference, Pena Nieto warned of the
dangers of populism in a globalized world and defended comments
earlier this year in which likened Trump to Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini.
"Hitler, Mussolini, we all know the result," he said when
asked to explain the comparison. "It was only a call for
reflection and for recognition, so that we bear in mind what we
have achieved and the great deal still to achieve."
The summit, Trudeau's first and Obama's last, could be the
final harmonious one between the three countries if Trump wins
the White House in the November U.S. presidential election.
Trudeau, who has generally steered clear of commenting on
Trump's remarks since taking power last November, said that
regardless of rhetoric the three nations would continue to have
tremendously close relations.
Obama has strongly criticized Trump in recent weeks and took
aim at the Republican's promises to clamp down on what he says
is out-of-control illegal immigration.
The United States, he said, acknowledged public fears about
the uncontrolled arrival of foreigners and had worked hard to
secure its borders.
"America is a nation of immigrants. That is our strength ...
The notion that we would somehow stop now on what has been a
tradition of attracting talent and strivers and dreamers from
all around the world, that would rob us of the thing that is
most special about America," he said.
Obama - whose progressive social policies are very similar
to Trudeau's - later received a rapturous welcome when he
addressed the Canadian Parliament. In a speech often interrupted
by prolonged applause, he said he understood that some people
had genuine concerns about the pace of change.
"If the benefits of globalization accrue only to those at
the very top, if our democracies seem incapable of assuring
broad-based growth and opportunity for everyone, then people
will push back out of anger or out of fear," he said.
"For those of us who truly believe that our economies have
to work for everybody, the answer is not to try and pull back
from our interconnected world. It is, rather, to engage with the
rest of the world, to shape the rules so they're good for our
workers and good for our businesses."
Protests over immigration have also been seen in Britain in
the wake of the so-called Brexit vote last week, which at one
point wiped more than $2 trillion off global equity markets.
Obama said he expected the world economy would be steady in
the short run but expressed longer term concerns about global
growth if Brexit went ahead.
Trump also opposes the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership,
which was signed in February but may not be ratified by the
United States given increasing domestic resistance. Obama said
on Wednesday he was committed to ensuring the pact contained
high labor and trade standards.
One obstacle to free trade is the dumping of products at
artificially low prices, and Trudeau, Obama and Pena Nieto said
they agreed on the need for the governments of all major
steel-making nations to address excess capacity.
The three also pledged to produce 50 percent of their
nations' electricity from clean energy by 2025.
(Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by James Dalgleish and
Diane Craft)