NAFTA Goes a Full 15 Rounds

The much-anticipated debate between Vice President Al Gore and Texas billionaire Ross Perot over the pending North American Free Trade Agreement was the clash of styles many had expected--the boxer versus the brawler.

Gore, a former member of the Senate accustomed to finely ruled debates in that body, scored with skill: measured delivery, facts and appeals to high-minded ideals. Perot, the populist gadfly, scored with furious but often uncontrolled energy: sharp witticisms, smirks and, all too often, insults designed to do little more than make great TV sound bites.

Even allowing for pointless forays into fringe issues, Gore won points more often in the debate, which was televised Tuesday evening by CNN. But did he win enough to convince Congress members intimidated by Perot? President Clinton must now bring the American public over to the side of NAFTA.

Gore’s approach did not emphasize making the best case for this historic trade pact--one that will lift tariffs and trade barriers with Canada and Mexico, thus preparing the United States to be more competitive in the world economy. Rather he scored by illuminating the contradictions and just plain faulty logic in Perot’s politically motivated opposition to NAFTA.

Consider just some of the balderdash that Perot, a skillful salesman to be sure, tried to sell:

--To show pictures of slums around U.S.-built factories in Mexico and imply that all Mexican workers live that way is a gross distortion, insulting not just to that country but to all Americans who have visited Mexico and seen the diversity of that nation for themselves.

--To claim, as Perot did, that all 85 million Mexicans are so poor that they can’t afford U.S. products is laughable. Why, for instance, do thousands of Mexicans legally cross the border every day to shop in U.S. stores from San Diego to Brownsville, Tex.?

--Perot was also way off base in trying to use Mexico’s failed border-plant program to discredit NAFTA. It is precisely because halfway measures like the maquiladoras have not worked that Mexican leaders want NAFTA.

Gore provided an important service by diminishing Perot’s stature in the NAFTA debate. Now Clinton must address the nation to explain the many sound economic and national-security reasons why NAFTA is a good deal for America.