Clinton Says Fear Motivates NAFTA Foes : Radio talk: President urges Americans to ‘embrace world economy, because we can’t run away from these changes.’

President Clinton, facing mounting odds against congressional passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, said Saturday that the opposition is motivated by “fear, not facts” and challenged Americans to “embrace the world economy, because we can’t run away from these changes.”

Three days before Vice President Al Gore is to debate the agreement with outspoken opponent Ross Perot, Clinton used his weekly radio address to pitch NAFTA, saying it will create “hundreds of thousands of new jobs for our people.”

But lawmakers opposing the accord predicted its defeat when the House votes on Nov. 17. Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), who is mobilizing the opposition in the House, said NAFTA foes are “right at the brink” of locking up enough votes to defeat the measure.

“It’s going down,” Bonior predicted in an interview on CNN’s “Newsmaker Saturday.” “It’s not just jobs that pay low wages we’re talking about,” Bonior added. “We’re talking about good jobs.”

But Clinton insisted in his radio address that “when the time comes, ordinary working Americans will agree with every living President, every living secretary of state, every living secretary of the Treasury, every living Nobel-prize-winning economist, and over 40 of the 50 governors,” that NAFTA would expand markets for American goods and help increase employment in the United States.

Clinton also characterized the vote as a gauge of Americans’ self-assurance and their willingness to remain engaged in the world’s affairs. Tying passage of NAFTA to several of his other major priorities, Clinton appealed to Americans to set aside their fears and to trust him as an agent of change.

“Ultimately this debate is a test of not only our purpose in the world but our own confidence in ourselves,” Clinton said. “I know the last several years have been tough on hard-working middle-class Americans. I ran for President to change that, to give people health care security and security of the education and training, and security as family members and workers.”

Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), a Clinton ally marshaling pro-NAFTA forces, acknowledged Saturday that proponents of the accord are now more than 30 votes short in the House. But Richardson insisted that “we have the momentum.”

Republicans remain largely allied with Clinton in support of the free trade agreement. On Saturday, they used their radio response to Clinton’s address to appeal to fear of a different problem: crime.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s leading Republican, stumped for the first bipartisan crime bill moving through Congress in eight years, telling a radio audience: “Republicans know that we need to return certainty of punishment to our system of justice. If you commit a crime, you’re going to do the time.”