THE Liberal senator Russell Trood has criticised suggestions by US presidential nominee Barack Obama that he may increase policies designed to protect American jobs.

"Those remarks in his speech about jobs in the rust-bucket states of the United States caused me concern," Senator Trood said on Network Ten yesterday. He is the deputy chairman of the Senate's powerful Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade committee.

Senator Obama told a crowd of some 70,000 people he would stop giving "tax breaks to corporations that sent jobs overseas".

The Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, said the Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, had to "haul Senator Trood into line" over his comments.

"Regrettably, the Liberal Party has form in this area," Mr Smith said in Perth.

He said that when in government former prime minister John Howard and Dr Nelson, then Defence minister, had attacked Senator Obama, saying effectively that he was "a candidate for the terrorists".

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald