PERSPECTIVE ON MEXICO : Another Revolutionary Comes Calling : Salinas embarks on his biggest gamble--asking for a free-trade pact that could embrace the whole hemisphere.

Having just recovered from the dramatic visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, President Bush will meet next with the world’s other great post-revolutionary, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the president of Mexico. Like Gorbachev, Salinas has begun to liberate his country from a stagnant, “revolutionary” tradition that ossified. If Bush cooperates, Salinas is prepared to embark on his most risky and radical initiative: the transformation of Mexico’s relationship with the United States.

The main issue on the agenda for their meeting Sunday is a free-trade agreement. This is an old idea that has been proposed by many Americans and dismissed by every Mexican--until Salinas.

Given the convoluted relationship between our two countries, it is possible that the two presidents might reverse their traditional roles, with Bush cautious and Salinas eager. Even if they only agree to set a date to begin negotiations, this summit still might be remembered as the historic first step in establishing a North American trade area of 350 million people, larger and with greater potential than the European Community. And that could lead to a Western Hemisphere economic union.

In a mere 18 months, Salinas has redrawn the political landscape of Mexico and redefined the boundaries of the relationship with the United States. He is not afraid to say that he wants good relations with the United States. Those who had relied on the state to control politics and the economy have been put on the defensive, and those who had defended limits to friendship with the United States have gone from making policy to criticizing it.

The old labels have been rendered obsolete. Though some call Salinas a conservative and opposition leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas a leftist, Salinas is the radical transformer, and Cardenas has accepted the new agenda. Cardenas has not opposed Salinas’ program of privatization, reduction of trade barriers or more integration with the United States. “The real issue,” Cardenas has written, “is how deeply, at what speed and under what conditions the changes should be undertaken.” This is a defense of the status quo, a discomfort with the pace of change; it is a classically conservative argument. “The outmoded view that confuses being progressive with being statist,” Salinas has said, “is being left behind. Today . . . being progressive is measured by deeds and results, not by rhetoric.”

Salinas’ deeds have been substantial, but his results in three crucial areas have been insufficient.

Thus far, he has made the most progress in the economic area, squeezing the deficit and inflation, privatizing banks and more than 70% of the state corporations, encouraging foreign investment, lowering trade barriers (from 100% to 20%) and reducing the debt by 20%. Last year, for the first time in a decade, Mexico’s economic growth exceeded its population growth.

Salinas’ approach to the political system has been more ambiguous. He moved decisively to arrest drug traffickers, business speculators, corrupt union bosses and even police officials involved in notorious crimes. He allowed opposition parties to capture a state governorship and numerous municipalities. But political violence, particularly against Cardenas’ followers, has increased, and the use of state power for partisan purposes has continued.

Salinas was initially reluctant to consider a free-trade agreement because, like most Mexicans, he preferred diversified relations to greater dependence on the United States. He revised his position for three reasons. First, he concluded that Canada had already benefited from its agreement with an increase of about 250,000 jobs. Also, the fear of closure or a reduction of the U.S. market--partly because of the Canadian agreement--is a more powerful motivator than the hope for more trade. Finally, Salinas understands that to create 1 million jobs a year and a modern, competitive economy, Mexico needs massive amounts of investment and technology. The Europeans are self-preoccupied and won’t provide it, and the Japanese are wary of investing unless their Mexican product has guaranteed access to the U.S. market. Only the free-trade agreement could do that. Give Mexicans’ fear of being dominated by American corporations. Salinas will be criticized for undermining the nation’s sovereignty or “giving away the store.” The demand for free movement of labor in the free trade agreement, as some have recommended, is a device not for driving a hard bargain but for precluding an agreement.

Salinas realizes that Mexico’s larger problem with the United States is not exploitation but lack of interest. To obtain domestic support, he will need to prove that the United States respects Mexico’s sovereignty. Bush can help by apologizing for the Drug Enforcement Agency’s involvement, though indirect, in the kidnaping of a Mexican doctor accused of complicity in the Camarena murder and returning him to Mexican authorities. The United States could then seek his extradition legally, as it should have in the first place.

While Salinas has lowered economic barriers within his country and between his country and the world, he has been reluctant to remove internal political barriers. Yet he needs to find ways to assure his political opposition that he is committed to free elections. A bold invitation to international groups to observe Mexico’s elections would silence criticism at home and abroad; it would give confidence and stability to the process of political change, and it would provide him the domestic support necessary to weather the awkward transition toward a free-trade area.

If Mexico, the most nationalistic country in the hemisphere, were willing to tie its economic fate to the United States, then the rest of the Caribbean Basin would not be far behind, and South America would soon follow. Indeed, the fear of being locked out of a North American economic community could be, once again, the factor that precipitates negotiations leading to a Western Hemisphere economic union.

In the long term, then, Salinas’ decision to integrate the North American economies could have as profound an impact on the United States and the hemisphere as has Gorbachev’s decision to declare an end to the Cold War.