The Democratic Party contenders for the presidential nomination - Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton – began exchanging “punches” over the over NAFTA as both of them are campaigning in Ohio before the state’s primaries scheduled for March 4.

The top issues debated in front of the Ohio voters are the economy and the jobs as both presidential candidates have blamed trade agreements for leading to the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Since 2000, Ohio’s manufacturing employment declined nearly 25 percent, the Bureau of Labor statistics have shown.

The series of sharp words exchanged between the two contenders has started just a few days ago as the New York Senator Hillary Clinton accused Obama of deliberately misrepresenting her record on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Clinton underlined the fact that she has allready made it clear that she is ambivalent about NAFTA. She accused the companies which “turned their back on Americans" while shipping jobs abroad.

Meanwhile, the 46-year-old Illinois Senator said that despite Clinton’s current criticism of NAFTA, she actually supported the trade agreement when it passed during Bill Clinton’s administration.

"Sen. Clinton has been going to great lengths on the campaign trail to distance herself from NAFTA," said Obama in Lorain, Ohio during his speech held on Sunday.

"In her own book, Sen. Clinton called NAFTA one of 'Bill's successes' and 'legislative victories," he added.

Obama said in his mailings from the Obama camp that Clinton was a "champion" for NAFTA during her husband’s mandate, but now she changed her position towards the trade agreement one hundred and eighty degrees.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, which came into effect on January 1, 1994 and it’s still the largest trade bloc in the world in terms of combined GDP of its members, was negotiated by the first President Bush and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

"Bad trade deals like NAFTA hit Ohio harder than other states. Only Barack Obama consistently opposed NAFTA," the mailer says.

While holding two of Obama’s campaign mailings in her hand during a speech held Saturday, Sen. Clinton expresed her anger with her opponent’s ways:

"Shame on you, Barack Obama".

Probably frustrated because the signs that she may lose the race began to show up and infuriated with Obama’s tactics, Clinton said: "enough with the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove's playbook."