Attitudes on Mexico, Asia Point Up Clinton, Dole, Buchanan Differences

By ties of blood and trade and geography, foreign policy in California looks to the Pacific.

Mexico, countries to its south and Asia are the largest sources of immigration into California. The six largest markets for California exports are all nations that border the Pacific Ocean. When a Chinese official recently hinted that retaliation could follow if the United States used force in the mainland’s dispute with Taiwan, it was Los Angeles, not New York or Washington, that he obliquely conjured as a potential target.

That’s more rhetorical flourish than military threat. But it underscores the inescapable, and intensifying, intimacy of U.S. relations with the nations of the Pacific. The rapidly growing markets of Asia and South America are likely to constitute the greatest economic opportunities for the United States (particularly California and the West) into the next century. But these turbulent waters also harbor many of the most vexing questions confronting U.S. foreign policy.

Foreign policy, apart from international trade, hasn’t yet attracted much attention in the presidential race. But attitudes toward Asia and Mexico pinpoint important contrasts in the world views of President Clinton, his presumptive Republican opponent, Bob Dole, and Patrick J. Buchanan, the conservative tribune still harrying Dole.

On most questions affecting Mexico and Asia, the three men fall into a triangle pattern--with Clinton upholding traditional internationalism, Buchanan preaching a conservative nationalism and Dole positioning himself in between.

This alignment is most apparent on relations with Mexico. Throughout his presidency, Clinton has staunchly supported the Mexican government. In 1993, he shouldered the North American Free Trade Agreement through a divided Congress. When the Mexican economy fell into chaos last year, Clinton arranged for a $52-billion package of aid to allow Mexico to repay its international debts. And earlier this month, Clinton ruled that Mexico is cooperating with U.S. antidrug efforts, despite deep concerns within his own administration about corruption in the Mexican police and judiciary.

“Clinton has taken a constructive interest in stabilizing Mexico . . . [while] leaving the Mexican authorities some running room,” said Abe Lowenthal, president of the Pacific Council on International Policy, a new foreign policy forum based in Los Angeles.

Buchanan finds nothing in Clinton’s Mexico policy to praise. Though he insists he doesn’t view Mexico as “a hostile country,” he portrays it as a virtually unrelenting threat to U.S. interests. In Buchanan’s geometry, narcotics and illegal immigrants flow north, while jobs move south as U.S. companies search out cheaper Mexican labor. Brandishing figures that show the $1.3-billion U.S. trade surplus with Mexico in 1994 cratered to a $15.3-billion deficit in 1995, Buchanan tirelessly calls for the repeal of NAFTA.

Actually, most economists say it is too early to proclaim NAFTA either a failure or a success. Its effect is almost impossible to isolate from the tumult of the peso devaluation that shrank the Mexican economy nearly 6% in 1995.

Dole, who voted for NAFTA, agrees that it’s too early to write off the agreement. “You can’t take a snapshot and say it is not working,” he said in a recent interview. “The peso collapsed; that was not anticipated.”

But Dole is now hedging his bets: Pressed by Buchanan at a debate this month, Dole said he would not vote for NAFTA again “without some changes in it.” And Dole says the United States needs a “cooling-off period” before attempting to expand NAFTA into South America.

Dole tilted toward Buchanan a second time when he wrote Clinton late last month to urge him not to certify that Mexico is cooperating in U.S. antidrug efforts. Such a denial could have eventually resulted in cutting off foreign aid.

In urging that hard line, Dole stood in the company of many California politicians, including Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. But Dole’s sharply worded letter to Clinton troubled other border-state Republicans who worry that, in his efforts to co-opt Buchanan’s message, he is growing too antagonistic toward Mexico.

Three Republican governors, in fact, privately chided Dole in a letter earlier this month. “Anything less than full certification would have devastating effects for the citizens of the U.S.-Mexico region,” Govs. George W. Bush of Texas, Fife Symington of Arizona and Gary Johnson of New Mexico wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Times.

On trade disputes with Asia, Clinton, Dole and Buchanan triangulate again. Buchanan takes the toughest line: He urges new across-the-board tariffs of 10% and 20% (sometimes he says 40%) on imports from Japan and China, respectively.

For his part, Clinton has focused on opening markets in Asia, through both direct negotiations with China and Japan and efforts to strike down trade barriers across the region. But his success on both fronts remains open to dispute.

Under Clinton’s prodding, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation organization, which includes the leading Pacific trading nations, has committed itself to constructing a free-trade zone across the region over the next 25 years. But the effort “appears to have bogged down,” says Bruce Stokes, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Likewise, Clinton can claim some progress from bilateral negotiations, such as the agreement he struck with Japan last summer to purchase more American cars and auto parts. American exports to China and especially Japan (up one-third from 1993 through 1995) have grown under Clinton. But critics point out that because of surging imports, America’s overall trade deficit has deteriorated with both Japan and China since 1992.

In this argument too, Dole positions himself between Clinton and Buchanan. Dole rejects Buchanan’s call for new tariffs but insists he would take a harder line than Clinton in trade talks with Japan and others. “In a Dole administration, we will quickly declare an end to the Clinton trade policy of surrender and sign on the dotted line,” Dole said.

On Asian security issues, the three men line up less predictably. Dole has been slightly more explicit than Clinton in promising that the United States would defend Taiwan if China attacks; Buchanan says he too would defend Taiwan, though he insists that the United States cannot offer the island an unconditional “war guarantee.”

While accusing Clinton of unsteadiness in dealing with China, Dole has made his own missteps. He said in a recent TV interview he would “support” a seat in the United Nations for Taiwan. But even Dole’s top foreign policy advisor considers that position overly provocative toward China and believes he will reconsider.

Likewise, Dole might find it just as difficult to sustain his pledges to bring more pressure against Mexico on drugs or Japan on trade. After all, Stokes notes, one likely target for Asian trade retaliation would be American grain interests that have long nourished Dole’s career.

The larger lesson is that bending the world to our will isn’t usually as easy as challengers in presidential campaigns suggest. Dole wouldn’t be the first to learn that: Clinton discovered it when domestic and foreign pressure forced him to abandon his 1992 opposition to granting China most-favored-nation trading status.

Such reversals dilute the predictive power of campaign foreign policy promises, further thinned by a second consideration. In predicting a president’s foreign policy course, the most important question is inherently unanswerable: How will he react to new or unanticipated threats and opportunities? Speeches and position papers offer clues, but only that; the real answers, to the extent they can be divined at all, reside in more intangible judgments about steadiness and strength of purpose. In a word, character.

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CALIFORNIA CONCERNS

One in a series examining the positions of President Clinton, Sen. Bob Dole and Patrick J. Buchanan on issues of importance to California.

ON FOREIGN POLICY

Dole on Clinton’s trade policy: ‘In a dole administration, we will quickly declare an end to the Clinton trade policy of surrender and sign on the dotted line.’

Buchanan on Asian trade disputes: Urges new across-the-board tariffs of 10% and 20% (sometimes he says 40%) on imports from Japan and China respectively.

Clinton on Mexico: Arranged a $52-billion package of aid to allow Mexico to repay its international debts, supports NAFTA and ruled that Mexico is cooperating with U.S. antidrug efforts.