NAFTA: In Congress’ Lap Now : Administration opens trade-agreement push among skeptical legislators

President Clinton’s uphill fight to persuade Congress to vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement begins today when side agreements with Mexico and Canada, designed to protect workers and the environment from any negative effects of the historic trade pact, are signed and the U.S. officials who negotiated those agreements testify about them before Congress.

With the nation struggling to emerge from recession, Congress is in a skeptical--even protectionist--mood about free trade, so no one expects NAFTA’s path to be easy. The clearest sign of how tough it could get for Clinton is the fact that the strongest opposition is expected to come from members of his own Democratic Party. But a local congressman, Esteban E. Torres, has come up with a proposal that could help ease NAFTA’s way.

By lowering tariffs and other trade barriers among the United States, Mexico and Canada over the next 15 years, NAFTA would help all three nations by creating more jobs in the long run than are lost to short-term economic changes. NAFTA’s side agreements are intended to ease the short-term fears, but they don’t go far enough for some Democrats, who ask how the environmental and labor programs they envision would be paid for. Administration officials want existing agencies like the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the U.S.-Mexico Boundary and Water Commission to do it.

Rep. Torres (D-La Puente) would create a North American Development Bank (NADBANK) to do the job, which seems like a much more creative approach. While the IADB can fund development projects in Mexico, and the boundary commission could pay for environmental cleanup on the border, Torres says his NADBANK could do both--plus use its funds to create new jobs or training programs in U.S. factory towns that lose manufacturing to Mexico.

Torres estimates that two dozen more Democrats might support the trade pact if its implementing legislation includes a NADBANK. For that reason alone Administration officials should give Torres’ plan serious consideration.