Free Trade Plan and Border Control

* Re “Consider NAFTA a Border Control Tool,” Commentary, Oct. 22:

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s theory sounds good. Many months before she was on the scene I wrote an article saying that NAFTA and an improved Mexican economy were the hope to reduce illegals. I have seen the agreement and NAFTA is a Trojan horse. Reno is now part of the Clinton parade of so-called “experts” who are using fear as the motivational force to gain public support for NAFTA.

I have spent more time on the border and on the issue of illegal immigration than Reno. NAFTA will not reduce illegal immigration to California from Mexico. The Republic of Mexico must take responsibility and agree in NAFTA that it will place its military on its side of the border to stop the invasion from Mexico before America signs any NAFTA treaty.

There is one way to get Mexico to wake up and take responsibility for the illegal immigrants from Mexico: put a blockade in San Diego/Tijuana now. That is what Reno should be doing instead of lobbying for NAFTA from her bully pulpit as attorney general.

HAROLD W. EZELL

Former Commissioner, INS

Newport Beach

* Janet Reno’s sophomoric essay should remove that last shine from the hype that surrounded her appointment. As a shill for the Clinton circus, she earnestly reissues the myth of the average Mexican consumer who outspends Japanese and European counterparts, glibly assumes that undocumented workers will stay home to work in transplanted U.S. factories, and deftly climbs aboard the anti-immigrant bandwagon driven by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Subtract the phantom exports (goods drop-shipped to Mexico for assembly prior to sale elsewhere) to obtain a closer approximation of what underpaid, non-union Mexican workers collectively spend. The work force in Mexico is growing at a rate that will far exceed the number of jobs shifted across the border. The work that non-European undocumented immigrants do in the fields, racetrack stables, hotels and the garment district will continue to be available to them after NAFTA. Rather than blaming these exploited people for our failing economic system, there should be some gratitude for the substance of their contribution in sweat-without-equity to the niceties of our lifestyle.

MICHAEL YEOMANS

Goleta

* It’s been clear all along, and rightly so, that NAFTA is only Phase 1 to an eventual Western Hemisphere Free Trade Assn. If Canada is now having second thoughts, in the form of its new government, why shouldn’t we move directly toward the ultimate objective?

I propose that we announce WHFTA and extend an invitation to any Western Hemisphere nation that wants to join us. If Canada bows out, that’s its problem. What a super trading bloc we’d have with the likes of Chile, Brazil, Argentina and other South American countries as wide-open markets for our products!

Many natives of Australia and New Zealand already consider themselves to be in the Western Hemisphere, so let them in. And if the “little tigers” of Southeast Asia want to participate, we’ll rule them honorary Western Hemispherites.

I’m sorry for Canada. Apparently it hasn’t learned the lesson of the suicidal Smoot-Hawley protective tariff we had in the ‘20s and ‘30s, which contributed heavily to our Great Depression woes, or understood how the Marshall Plan led to a European prosperity, which let those nations buy such quantities of our exports. But that need not hold us back.

EVERETT DANIELS

Los Angeles