Perot Seen Profiting, With or Without NAFTA : Trade: Gore raised conflict of interest issue. But the Texan’s potential for gain stems mainly from his diverse business operations.

In his televised debate with Ross Perot over the North American Free Trade Agreement, Vice President Al Gore suggested that Perot’s vehement public opposition to the pact represented a conflict of interest because the Texas billionaire’s family had invested heavily in an airport industrial park near Ft. Worth that would benefit if the treaty is rejected.

But in fact, Perot and his family apparently have arranged his personal business interests in such a way that they are likely to profit whether the trade agreement is approved or rejected.

Gore was referring to an airport and surrounding industrial park that Perot and his son developed in Ft. Worth. The industrial park operates as a free trade zone, allowing imported products to enter duty-free and making the park an important regional trade conduit. Gore said that the park’s status no longer would be special if trade pact is in force.

At the same time, however, Perot’s own computer service company has been scouring Mexico for new business opportunities--opportunities that his aides acknowledge will be better if the pact is approved and trade with Mexico expands.

Perot’s potential for financial gain from trade with Mexico--either with or without passage of the agreement--became a key issue in Tuesday night’s debate, as Gore sought to capitalize on the notion that Perot was wearing two hats: as a private investor and would-be national leader.

“If (free trade) is good enough for him, why isn’t it good enough for the rest of the country?” Gore asked during the 90-minute exchange on the Cable News Network’s “Larry King Live” show. “I think he has set it up so he will benefit either way.”

Perot has become the nation’s most visible and voluble critic of the trade pact, which he warns will lead to massive job losses as American businesses move factories and offices south of the border.

Yet during the debate, Perot seemed to be caught off guard by Gore’s repeated attacks on his business interests. “He (Gore) throws up propaganda. He throws up gorilla dust,” Perot responded. “I will put my country’s interests in front of making money. . . . Everything I’m doing makes it next to impossible for my family to ever do anything south of the border. And I could care less.”

Gore specifically went after Perot for his involvement in the Alliance Airport and surrounding 5,000-acre industrial park in Ft. Worth that he developed with his son, Ross Perot Jr. Perot’s family donated land to the city for construction of the airport, which opened in 1989 for private and other non-passenger air traffic. But the Perot family retained the surrounding land, on which Hillwood Development Corp., Ross Perot Jr.’s firm, developed the industrial park. Companies controlled by Ross Perot Sr. own much of the land being used for the development, according to Hays Lindsley, an attorney for Ross Perot Jr. and Hillwood.

In 1991, the developers applied for federal authority to create a duty-free trade zone at the industrial park and their application filed with the Commerce Department said that they expected the park to benefit from the trade agreement.

In August, the Perot industrial park received permission for the trade zone from the federal government.

Officials at the Perot development firm said that they believe the industrial park--already a conduit for international goods--will become an even more important center for international trade. They have been trying to recruit tenants to the park by extolling its attractiveness as a transportation and distribution center right on the cross-border trade route.

“Since we offer a distribution and transportation center, we think we might benefit from an increased flow of goods,” said Lindsley.

In fact, Gore pointed out that the industrial park is in some ways benefiting from the status quo on U.S.-Mexican trade that Perot wants to preserve. He noted that one company, Valmont Electric, shut down its plant in Illinois and moved to Mexico to avoid a high Mexican tariff on its goods. The firm ships its goods back into the United States duty-free through the Alliance Airport industrial park.

“If we passed NAFTA, (the Mexican tariff that prompted Valmont to move to Mexico) would be gone and companies like Valmont could stay here in the United States, sell their products in Mexico and not have to go down there to get over the barrier,” Gore said.

Perot stressed, however, that the airport industrial park is “not aimed at doing business with Mexico. The jobs are created in Texas; Texas is in the United States.”

Yet Perot’s other business interests are now looking to expand directly into Mexico as well, clearly hoping to take advantage of new investment opportunities. While those opportunities might still be there if the trade accord fails, the Texas billionaire’s interests clearly expect opportunities to be enhanced by free trade.

Morton Meyerson, chairman of Dallas-based Perot Systems, met with Mexican railway authority officials and executives at other firms in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara in October, looking for data processing and computer services contracts, according to Perot Systems spokesman Chris Souther.

Javier Lopez, a spokesman for Ferrocarriles Nacionales, the Mexican national railroad company based in Mexico City, also confirmed that the railroad has engaged in “continuing talks” with Perot Systems about doing computer work for the state-owned railway.

While in Mexico scouting business opportunities, Meyerson acknowledged that the firm was extremely interested in getting into the Mexican market, which he believes has a big growth potential, thanks largely to the prospects for free trade.

Asked if Meyerson had consulted Perot about investigating business opportunities in Mexico in the midst of Perot’s campaign to defeat the trade agreement, Jake Dye, a Perot Systems spokesman traveling with Meyerson in England Tuesday, replied: “I think you have to assume that they talk frequently.”

Perot Systems, which says that its computer services work generates about $300 million in annual revenues, is a privately owned firm founded by Perot in 1987. Perot relinquished chairmanship to Meyerson last year but remains on the board of directors and is a major shareholder, company officials said.

Meyerson, long one of Perot’s closest advisers, believes that expanding into Mexico is “consistent” with the firm’s global approach to business, Dye said. Perot Systems now has large operations in Europe, but has yet to win any significant customers in Mexico. Last year, the company lost a bid to provide data processing services for Probursa, a Mexico City-based brokerage firm.

Trade experts said that the trade accord would be extremely beneficial to computer services firms like Perot Systems. A former U.S. trade official said the pact would immediately lift all restrictions on the ability of U.S. computer services firms to handle data processing work for Mexican companies. U.S. firms would be able to provide those services from new facilities in Mexico or over data links from U.S. sites.

Electronic Data Services Corp., the computer services giant that Perot founded in the early 1960s and then sold to General Motors, advised U.S. trade negotiators on the computer services provisions and is an enthusiastic supporter of the agreement. “The computer services section is one of the shining stars of NAFTA,” said the former U.S. trade official, who requested anonymity.

But Gore’s attack on Perot was only one highlight of a new campaign by supporters of the pact, both inside and outside the Clinton Administration, to discredit Perot by pointing out the conflict between his political opposition to the trade accord and the potential benefits that would accrue to him if it is ratified by Congress.

The issue is relevant to the debate, noted one White House official, because “it makes you question his credibility.”

Risen reported from Washington and Darling from Mexico City.