Ed Morrissey to this CTV article, reporting on the Obama campaign’s communications with Canadian officials on NAFTA. It seems he’s telling them not to take his anti-NAFTA rhetoric so seriously.

Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have been critical of the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement over the course of the Democratic primaries, saying that the deal has cost U.S. workers’ jobs.

Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama’s campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

The Clinton campaign denies having done something similar, but the Obama campaign won’t deny the report.

Ed writes:

If true, this would show Obama as the worst kind of demagogue. It would mean he’s telling people what they want to hear while rejecting it himself, or alternately that he has begun his diplomatic relations with Canada by lying to them. Either way if true, it paints a disturbing picture of the kind of politician Obama really is.

In case the Democrats don’t realize it, Canada is our most important trading partner — and they rely on NAFTA heavily. Canada is the number one importer for oil, followed by our other NAFTA partner Mexico. If we junk NAFTA, it will create a fairly large diplomatic rift and ripples throughout our economy. Instead of making us more popular in the world, the Democrats will start making us less popular on our own continent and alienate our closest friend, as well as damage all three economies.

As Ed notes, Canada is our most important trading partner. It’s plausible that the Obama campaign knows this, as well as what Ed says in the last sentence, and that’s why it’s telling Canada not to take its rhetoric too seriously. Problem is, American supporters of the messiah are taking him very seriously, and he’d be betraying whatever trust they have in him.