Perot Goes Easy on Trade Pact : NAFTA: In testimony before a House panel, the billionaire cools some of the heated rhetoric he used in his presidential campaign. But he’s still against the accord.

The Clinton Administration, poised to defend the North American Free Trade Agreement against an assault from Ross Perot, scored a victory of sorts Wednesday when Perot tempered his criticism of the pact during congressional testimony.

Perot made clear his continuing opposition to the pending U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact. Less certain by the end of an afternoon of testimony before the House Small Business Committee is what he would do about it.

Although Perot roundly criticized the pact during last year’s presidential campaign, Clinton Administration officials fear that renewed, vigorous opposition from the Texas billionaire now could tip the scales against ratification.

But as he critiqued the agreement, Perot pulled his punches somewhat, avoiding the all-out assault that some White House officials had feared, while calling on Congress to give the final agreement careful evaluation.

“I’m saying let’s make sure we get it done right,” he said.

Lacing his testimony with statistics--”The standard of living has gone down for four out of five American families during the ‘80s. . . . In 1950, a dollar was worth a dollar”--and signing autographs for all comers, including House staff members, Perot lectured House members much as he did audiences throughout his unsuccessful presidential campaign.

Perot addressed few of the details of the agreement, focusing more on the shifting nature of world trade at the end of the 20th Century.

Offering no specific example, he said the United States had followed “a pattern in our trade agreements--one-sided, everyone skins us.” Then he added: “Entire industries have been lost overseas as a byproduct of these agreements.”

He maintained that the United States would be unable to pull out of the pact, although its supporters say that it allows for just such a retreat within the first six months of the agreement.

But, refraining from sharp, specific criticism, he said he is “confident” that President Clinton and his trade representative, Mickey Kantor, “will work to assure that the agreement is fair.”

The Administration, said Perot, has two choices: It can delay the agreement or it can ratify it and try to work out the problems through supplemental agreements.

Kantor and others pointed out later that the Administration has delayed sending the 2,000-page agreement to Congress for approval until it can negotiate supplemental agreements. Primary among them are Mexico’s adherence to environmental and labor standards and protection of U.S. workers against imports from Mexico.

These negotiations began last week in Washington and will continue next month in Ottawa. The agreement would remove tariffs and other trade barriers over a 15-year period.

The fact that Perot would weigh in on the subject of the trade agreement clearly made the treaty’s supporters uneasy Wednesday.

Well before he arrived on Capitol Hill, more than a dozen supporters in the House had scheduled a news conference to respond to whatever he would say. A coalition of business organizations favoring the treaty offered reporters interviews with business executives, and the Clinton Administration made clear that it was ready to jump into the fray, too.