Clinton Says Yes--Sort Of : With reservations, he endorses the North American Free Trade Agreement

Let there be no mistake, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton deserves credit for having finally endorsed--however conditionally--the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement among the United States, Mexico and Canada. There are significant factions in the Democratic Party that would just as soon their presidential candidate oppose NAFTA outright.

But the qualifications in Clinton’s endorsement raise questions. The biggest is one of time: Will Clinton’s expression of his concerns serve to delay NAFTA’s implementation? We hope not, but that is the risk to the agreement posed by the candidate’s statement, made in a major speech last weekend.

NAFTA would only formalize and regulate a process already well under way--the integration of the U.S., Mexican and Canadian economies into a single market stretching, as the political rhetoric would have it, from the Yukon to the Yucatan. The process has been accelerated by the vision of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who has rightly turned his back on generations of Mexican protectionism in order to move a fast-growing Third World nation into the ranks of developed countries as rapidly as possible.

What’s in it for the United States? A lot. Foreign trade is the one sector of the U.S. economy that’s growing, even booming, despite the current recession. It would thus be shortsighted for any U.S. political leader not to accept Salinas’ offer to negotiate any remaining reservations about NAFTA.

It’s true that President Bush has sometimes tried to rush NAFTA along with unseemly haste. Bush truly believes in free trade, but it is also apparent that the Republican campaign thinks there are political points to be scored in pivotal border states like California and Texas by pushing for more trade with Mexico. Additionally, Clinton’s delay in expressing support for NAFTA clearly gave his Republican rival a chance to attack him either as indecisive on the issues or beholden to special interests in the Democratic Party--specifically organized labor--that have been opposed to NAFTA.

But no major trade treaty should be put into effect without consideration of its side effects and the possibility of unintended consequences. Salinas agrees, but would prefer that issues such as the treaty’s environmental impact and possible job losses for both U.S. and Mexican workers be dealt with in separate negotiations.

That is what Clinton says he wants. But, again, the element of time is pivotal. Even the best treaty can be derailed by diplomatic and bureaucratic delays. Clinton’s concerns about jobs and the environment must not be used to sabotage a historic pact that will so clearly give long-term benefits to all of North America.