Free Trade Pitchers to Be on Ball Cards

Presidents Bush and Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico may be baseball fans, but they won’t like being on the cover of 50,000 baseball cards to be distributed at the All-Star game in San Diego today.

The cards will be handed out at Jack Murphy Stadium by groups fighting the North American free trade agreement that the United States and Mexico are negotiating with Canada.

“Don’t let them throw you a curve ball, strike out NAFTA,” say the cards. Bush and Salinas are in baseball uniforms.

The coalition of unions and environmental, farm, consumer and religious groups says the trade pact will harm U.S. workers because plants will move south to capitalize on Mexico’s cheap labor and weaker regulations.

“Like card collectors who trade baseball cards, these two leaders are trading away the future of millions of Americans,” said William Bywater, president of the International Union of Electronic Workers.