Keeping the Long View on Trade : Politics mustn’t be barrier to newly written pact

Fourteen months of negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement may indeed have been rushed to conclusion this week by the Bush Administration in an effort to gain short-term political benefit. But that does not detract from the fact that, over the long run, this trilateral pact could open a new era of cooperation and prosperity for the United States, Mexico and Canada.

THE SHORT TERM: The White House had been eager to conclude the negotiations before the start of next week’s Republican National Convention in Houston. With Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton still ahead in most public opinion polls, President Bush’s political advisers are hoping that the successful trade talks will remind the electorate of Bush’s expertise in foreign affairs and also show that the President is working to get the recession-bound U.S. economy on the upswing. Both are positive points that Bush and his supporters can be expected to trumpet early and often at the GOP convention.

That’s understandable, just as it is understandable that, for their own political reasons, many Democrats are going to be less than enthusiastic about NAFTA, as it has come to be called. A few protectionists will be utterly and unalterably opposed to it. But the more constructive Democrats--and so far Clinton and his running mate, Sen. Al Gore, have been in that camp--will raise questions mainly about the agreement’s fine print, about the environmental impact along the U.S.-Mexico border if free trade spurs uncontrolled economic growth there and about the plight of workers who might lose jobs if U.S. factories move to Mexico.

THE LONG TERM: But, despite the haste with which the White House announced the free trade agreement, there is still plenty of time for the Administration and Congress to debate the accord and to refine it, should that prove necessary. Lawyers for all three countries must still hammer out the legal language of the final NAFTA document. And the legislatures of the three countries must draft enabling legislation to put the agreement into effect. Congress probably won’t be able to vote on NAFTA until next year.

That means there is adequate time to analyze and debate the pact. But although tough questions about the free trade agreement will be asked, and should be, the potential long-term benefits of NAFTA must not be ignored.

At a time when other segments of the U.S. economy are shrinking, foreign trade--particularly with Mexico--is expanding dramatically. U.S. exports to Mexico have doubled in the last five years, to nearly $65 billion. Our southern neighbor is now this country’s fastest-growing export market. With such momentum already present, a free trade pact could create about 300,000 new jobs in the United States by 1995, according to one independent study.

If responsible political leaders in both parties keep facts like that in mind, they won’t be tempted to sacrifice the long-term benefits of free trade for the sake of short-term political gains.