Democratic threats to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement are little more than "political grandstanding" said a panel of economists and trade experts at the National Press Club this morning.

"Withdrawal is not a viable option," said Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "It would be too costly in terms of American jobs."

As for the railing of politicians against outsourcing and losing jobs to China and India, Mr. Schott said the protectionist fever in the U.S. ignores reality.

"The manufacturing jobs that were lost in Ohio were lost not to Mexico but to Alabama, Texas, California" and other states, he said, adding that the same thing has happened to auto industry jobs in Detroit.

"A lot of the migration is going between the states, but you never hear about that," Mr. Schott said.

Mr. Schott did allow that NAFTA could use some "renovation."

But he also said that any real negotiating between the U.S., Canada and Mexico is impossible in the current political environment, which has risen several degrees as Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama try to win over the populist vote that once belonged to John Edwards.

Mr. Schott and his colleague Gary Hufbauer have proposed building a coalition between the U.S., Canada and Mexico under the next president that focuses on a North American solution to climate change, and using that common ground from which to launch NAFTA negotiations.

Mr. Hufbauer's testimony before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee can be viewed here.

Along with Mr. Schott, former U.S. representative to the World Trade Organization James Bacchus railed against protectionist rhetoric in both the Democratic and Republican parties.

"I am concerned that this cascading political rhetoric, this competition to see who can punch the pinata of NAFTA and trade the hardest, could have very deleterious results to the true economic interests of the United States of America," he said.

But Mr. Bacchus, himself a Democrat, lobbed his biggest bombs at his own party.

"We Democrats have been shouting from the rooftops since the beginning of the Iraq war that we need to be seeking multilateral solutions first and not last," Mr. Bacchus said. "But in terms of multilateral approaches to shared global concerns, what is it that the rest of the world wants most? It is the opportunity to trade with us."

"What kind of message are we sending?" Mr. Bacchus said, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's blocking of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement and to the rhetoric of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. "What does that say to the rest of the world?"

"All of our troubles are blamed on trade and NAFTA, as opposed to what we can do about it ourselves," said Jim Jones, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, who was also on the panel. "That's a bad tone to be setting."

"Amen!" thundered Mr. Bacchus.

Here is another great Bacchus quote:

"It is arrogant and solipsistic for the United States of America to think that we can take a timeout on trade and that the rest of the world will simply wait until we're ready to trade again. That won't happen," Mr. Bacchus said. "The rest of the world will look elsewhere for places to invest their funds. The rest of the world will look elsewhere for opportunities to trade. The rest of the world will continue to develop economically and advance economically and become more competitive. If we insulate and isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, we will become less competitive and not more competitive, and the rest of the world will move forward without us."

As for the deal announced today on U.S. beef imports to South Korea, Mr. Schott said it "opens the door for congressional consideration" of the free trade agreement with Seoul.

He said that the Democrats "risk putting themselves in a box" by opposing the Colombian and Korean FTA's, and that the two deals could be packaged together in a twin deal this year, though he called that possibility a "longshot" because of the lack of time on the congressional calendar.

— Jon Ward, White House correspondent, The Washington Times