Proposals for NAFTA Audit

Thanks should go to Lawrence Mattera for writing “Failed Promises Are Turning the Tide Against NAFTA” (Commentary, Sept. 25). No one should be surprised that NAFTA has turned out to be an unmitigated financial and social disaster for the United States, given the history of our foreign trade deals. In the last 16 years our foreign trade deficits have topped $1.5 trillion. That eclipses the entire national debt when President Reagan came into office.

That NAFTA was supported by five U.S. presidents, their administrations, legions of economists, bankers and multinationals who engineered these past financial trade debacles should have been sufficient enough reason for Congress not to ratify the treaty.

Given the egregious record of our public officials, banking heads and multinational CEOs to negotiate profitable trade deals, the Constitution should be amended and any future trade treaties should be subject to ratification by a national referendum. In the meantime, unqualified support should be given to the NAFTA Accountability Act as it makes its way through Congress.

ROBERT C. PIKE

Montrose

I believe that the real issue is whether or not it was reasonable for the signatories to assume that the socioeconomic situation in Mexico would not take a change for the worse, as happened with the foreseeable Chiapas uprising. The subsequent predictable flight of foreign capital coupled with an obstinate monetary policy led to the economic crisis of December 1994, which has adversely affected Mexico, the U.S. and, of course, NAFTA.

ARTURO G. OVIEDO

Los Angeles