Clinton Warns Mexico Could Seek Japan-Europe Pact : Trade: The President uses his weekly radio address to predict what may happen if Congress rejects NAFTA.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton warned Saturday that rejecting the North American Free Trade Agreement could cause Mexico “to make a sweetheart deal for trade” with Japan and Europe.

With the congressional vote a month away, Clinton used his weekly radio address to push for the free trade pact, saying that defeat of NAFTA could also turn Mexico into an “export platform” for bringing more European and Japanese goods into the United States.

“America has too often been playing by old rules” in trade, while its chief rivals have adapted by developing regional trade blocs, Clinton said. “Now with NAFTA, we can adapt by using our friends and neighbors--first in Canada and Mexico, and eventually in the rest of Latin America.”

He disputed NAFTA opponents who argue that it will cause more U.S. companies to move to Mexico to take advantage of cheaper labor and fewer environmental and other regulations.

U.S. companies currently can relocate to Mexico and produce for the American market with low tariffs, Clinton noted. “But NAFTA will require Mexico to enforce its own environmental laws and labor standards,” raising production costs there. “That will make it less likely, not more likely, that a company will cross the Rio Grande to take advantage of lower wages or lax pollution laws.”

The Republicans, many of whom support NAFTA, used their radio response Saturday to criticize Clinton on foreign policy.

Sen. Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire charged that Clinton has sent U.S. forces “into harm’s way” in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia even though no American security interests are at stake there.

“The Administration has stumbled, and the results have been disastrous,” Smith said in comments unusually strong about ongoing foreign operations.

He said Clinton “has failed to apply the lessons of Vietnam and Lebanon to the situation in Somalia. The results have been disastrous. Twenty-nine American soldiers have perished in this far-away conflict for a cause that is unsupported and a mission undefined.

“Today there are approximately 26 conflicts raging where two or more countries are at war, or where insurrections threaten the stability of an internationally recognized government,” he noted. But that does not mean “the United States should intervene wherever there’s bloodshed or unrest.

“The President needs to establish a set of guiding principles to govern our use of military force.” Calling U.S. armed forces “a national treasure,” Smith said “they are not a law enforcement agency to be sub-contracted out wherever and whenever the United Nations sees fit.”

In related remarks, two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sens. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), criticized the Administration for failing to consult with Congress before taking actions that could cost American lives.

Contending that the Senate had no part in the stepped-up role for U.S. forces in Somalia, Kerry said he doubted that lawmakers would have approved it if given the chance to vote.

Appearing on the same CNN “Newsmaker Saturday” program with Kerry, Lugar said the foreign relations committee had been trying “for a long time” to meet with an Administration representative, “and we have yet to see that person arrive.”