It’s Unwise to Make That Kind of Threat : Clinton aide says U.S. might walk away from NAFTA pact

President Clinton has tried to portray himself and his new Administration as champions of free trade and open markets. But so far actions have fallen short of the rhetoric when it comes to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.

NAFTA, as it is commonly known, is the historic agreement that would lower tariffs and other trade barriers from the Yukon to the Yucatan, creating the largest free market in the world. But this vital and visionary pact is being threatened by certain groups and critics, primarily labor and extreme environmentalists, who, perhaps unintentionally, might nit-pick it to death.

To be fair, Clinton has never been wildly enthusiastic about the agreement. During his election campaign against George Bush, Clinton endorsed NAFTA only conditionally. With his inauguration he inherited the task of seeing that NAFTA, which Bush signed before leaving the presidency, goes into effect next year. That entails sending timely implementing legislation to Congress.

That’s why it is worrisome that the Administration is now sending signals that the NAFTA legislation might be delayed by side agreements being sought by protectionist Democrats in Congress. Concerns also are mounting that the White House might delay NAFTA simply as a tactical move, in order to not distract attention from the President’s economic program.

BEING INSULTING: To succumb on the first point would be to yield to vested-interest pressures--and undermine Clinton’s so-far successful effort to push the Democrats to a more centrist position. It would also insult Mexico by demeaning the real effort that country’s government has put into environmental cleanup in recent years, spending more per capita than the U.S. government has.

And to conclude that a NAFTA push would hurt Clinton’s economic agenda is shortsighted. NAFTA, after all, is about promoting the one sector of the U.S. economy that has been booming even in the recession: exports and other forms of foreign trade. Consider that in the last four years alone Mexicans have almost doubled their purchases of U.S.-made goods, from $20.6 billion in 1988 to $40.6 billion in 1992.

U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor told a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday that the White House would not send implementing legislation for NAFTA to Congress for a vote without having in place side agreements covering environmental and labor issues. “I am prepared to walk away from the table if we can’t get these necessary side agreements” in talks scheduled to begin March 17, Kantor said.

BEING CAGEY: That may be merely a tough rhetorical stance to take at the start of negotiations; we hope Kantor doesn’t mean it. To walk away from NAFTA after 14 long months of negotiations would be a disaster, not just for this country but for Mexico and Canada, whose political leaders have shown no small amount of vision and courage in pushing to further integrate their economies with our own, despite fierce opposition from nationalists who would deny the benefits of that integration.

A far better approach for Kantor’s office to take would be to implement the side agreements separately, so as to not hold up NAFTA legislation. A late NAFTA bill could get caught in a late summer legislative bottleneck as Congress wrestles with budget proposals and perhaps health care reform. It would be far better if it were submitted no later than July, to give Congress adequate time to vote before the end of the legislative year.

With his economic plan Clinton has aptly demonstrated that he is politically savvy and a master of salesmanship and consensus building. He must use those talents to push NAFTA. Failure to do so could cause a rift with two important neighbors and economic harm to this country.