Nafta

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) -- now pending approval from Congress -- will link the United States to our first and third largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico.It will create opportunities for Americans to do what they do best -- compete in an open and growing marketplace.NAFTA will build on the success of the Canada Free Trade Agreement. That accord, which took effect in 1989, helped bring about a 19 percent increase in U.S. exports to Canada, and it helped create more than 264,000 new U.S. jobs.

WASHINGTON -- Barely five years ago, Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt struggled under the label "protectionist" as a result of his campaign for tougher trade policies toward Japan. He got so frustrated that at one point he blurted out that if being a protectionist meant standing up for American workers against unfair foreign trade practices, "then I'm a protectionist."Gephardt's tough position toward Japan sat well with organized labor, but not well enough to win the endorsement of either the AFL-CIO or the United Auto Workers, critical to his chances, especially in Michigan, where his fading 1988 campaign finally collapsed.

WASHINGTON -- When William Daley, the ring-wise Chicago lawyer, was named by President Clinton to lead the campaign to confirm the North American Free Trade Agreement, he said the kind of thing that a ring-wise Chicago lawyer might say in those circumstances. "With your leadership," he said, turning to the president, "we will be successful."In this case, however, this was more than the usual boilerplate. Once again, Clinton's ability to lead his own party is being put to the test. And once again, the potential political ramifications go beyond the issue at hand.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton strode across the South Lawn of the White House yesterday, and as the Marine band played "Hail to the Chief" and his shiny helicopter idled in the background, he thanked staffers for helping him pass the North American Free Trade Agreement -- and then flew off to Seattle and a brighter future for his administration.Mr. Clinton said his come-from-behind victory in the House of Representatives Wednesday night would help him as he headed to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, where he hopes to persuade Japan, China, Korea and other U.S. trading rivals to open up their difficult-to-penetrate markets.

By signing the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, President Bush has done President-elect Clinton a favor -- a favor akin to handing a hungry man a very hot potato. Mr. Clinton has a pact he describes as "an important step toward the economic integration of North America" but he also has the burden of getting it through Congress in short order.Jesse Jackson, no particular friend of Mr. Clinton, has fired a salvo at the treaty by saying it "represents the failed policies of a defeated [Bush]

WASHINGTON -- The politicians packed into the East Room of the White House gave former President Jimmy Carter a standing ovation the other day when he excoriated Ross Perot on the issue of the North American Free Trade Agreement. But neither President Clinton nor any prominent figure in the Democratic Party has been willing to do the same.It is obvious, of course, that because he is out of politics Carter has nothing to fear from Perot and his supporters. Thus, he could feel free to call the Texas billionaire "a demagogue who has unlimited financial resources and who is extremely careless with the truth, who is preying on the fears and the uncertainties of the American public."

The tone at the table was wistful, with an overlay of bitterness. The vice president and the rich man were swapping telegenic postures in lieu of new information on this great big foreign trade agreement, and now everybody at the table started mentioning names of the dearly departed.''Sparrows Point,'' said a prematurely retired fellow who worked there when the big steel jobs were passed like heirlooms from one generation to the next.''Crown Cork and Seal,'' said a cabdriver who remembered a time when the jobs there were bountiful and life seemed secure.

Washington. -- For more than a century, nothing has tasted sweeter to the nation's sugar producers than government protection of their profits.Now, once again, the industry has demonstrated why it is one of the most coddled in the country by carving out a special deal for itself in the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement.How it did so is a case study in political clout.Industry lobbyists and members of Congress from sugar-producing states pressured the administration into squeezing an agreement out of Mexico to prevent a possible flood of Mexican sugar into the United States.

IT'S time for a different NAFTA. To avert disaster, the president should withdraw the proposed agreement before Wednesday's vote, go back to the negotiating table with the Mexicans and do what it takes to enlist sufficient support from his own party.With the White House still at least 25 votes short, Mr. Clinton's current up-or-down strategy on NAFTA portends a donnybrook for both the president and NAFTA's congressional opponents. If NAFTA is defeated, Mr. Clinton and his party will suffer a self-inflicted wound -- and that doesn't have to happen.

THE administration and its pro-NAFTA allies have been predicting a major foreign policy disaster if NAFTA is voted down. This is foolish in two respects. First, it is unconvincing as a strategy for winning support. And second, the sponsors risk setting up a self-fulfilling prophesy of exaggerated humiliation should NAFTA lose.Here is a sampler of recent pro-NAFTA hyperbole:The New Republic for Oct. 11 included four pro-NAFTA pieces, opening with an overheated editorial on the magazine's cover: "As much as any event since the communist collapse, the vote on NAFTA could define America's post-Cold War identity.