NAFTA Fight Offers Competing Visions of U.S. International Role : Diplomacy: The increasingly venomous debate over the free trade agreement pits traditional internationalists against resurgent isolationists.

WASHINGTON — Congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement is shaping up as a key challenge to President Bill Clinton’s leadership and a test of America’s commitment to internationalism in the post-Cold War era.

NAFTA presents President Clinton with a challenge similar to the one George Bush faced in August, 1990. By reversing Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, President Bush created a new security paradigm for U.S. engagement abroad--a model of American leadership that reflected the realities of a vastly altered global environment.

Like President Bush, President Clinton now has the opportunity to set a powerful precedent, this time in the vital realm of international economics. Like President Bush, he faces domestic opposition. And like President Bush, he must take the case for confidence, not fear, to a doubting people and a divided Congress--a task that will test both the style and substance of his leadership.

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has warned that postponing NAFTA approval beyond its Jan. 1 deadline could imperil the agreement. Some congressional Democrats are already urging renegotiation. But Salinas is right. NAFTA will rise or fall on the President’s commitment. To win, the President will have to make NAFTA his No. 1 priority for the rest of this year. If he doesn’t make this all-out effort now, he is likely to find that he cannot successfully make it later.

The nation’s stake in NAFTA has sometimes been lost in the avalanche of detail, pro and con, that has obscured the debate. Clear away the clutter and the case for NAFTA is compelling.

Economically, NAFTA will be a boon for U.S. manufacturers, consumers and workers. It is projected to create as many as 200,000 new jobs for Americans by 1995 and add as much as $30 billion annually to our struggling economy. The economic case made against NAFTA--that it will lead to U.S. job losses--is contradicted by history. U.S. exports to Mexico have tripled over the last seven years, giving employment to hundreds of thousands of Americans. Freer trade with Mexico will generate more exports--and more jobs.

The intellectual basis of the anti-NAFTA argument is equally spurious. If low wages were the sole determinant of investment decisions, Haiti would be the Western Hemisphere’s economic powerhouse and Chad one of the world’s largest exporters. They aren’t. American workers enjoy high-paying jobs because they are the most productive in the world. Increasing productivity, not protectionism, is the secret to keeping those jobs and maintaining those wages. That “great sucking sound” we hear so much about is hot air escaping from the fatuous arguments of NAFTA critics.

The political advantages of NAFTA are no less clear. One of the great unheralded successes of the last decade has been the revolution in U.S. relations with Mexico. After decades marked by U.S. indifference and Mexican insecurity, our two countries are now full hemispheric partners. Much of the credit goes to Salinas. He has moved to open his country’s economy, free its markets and set it securely on a more democratic path. A vote against NAFTA would undermine reform, undercut Salinas and play into the hands of Mexican politicians who still equate nationalism with anti-Yankeeism.

NAFTA will also advance America’s interest in a cleaner environment. The agreement is a “green” document. Its enforcement mechanisms will tighten environmental standards on the U.S. southern border. In addition, NAFTA will promote cooperation on a wide range of environmental issues and encourage grass-roots awareness of the need for protection in both countries.

In the longer term, NAFTA will promote environmental protection in Mexico by creating economic growth. The reason is simple: For poor countries like Mexico, a clean environment is perceived as a luxury. This will change as rising standards of living make stricter regulation affordable, economically and politically.

Economic growth in Mexico is similarly vital to our efforts to stem the tide of illegal Mexican immigration. The surest way to stop Mexicans from seeking jobs in the United States is to generate jobs in Mexico. NAFTA will do this. Keeping Mexico impoverished is neither an ethical nor a practical remedy for cross-border pollution and migration.

President Clinton will find passing NAFTA an uphill battle. His tepid endorsement during last fall’s campaign sent an ambiguous signal of his commitment. By not putting NAFTA on the front burner during the first months of his Administration, the President allowed NAFTA opponents, including many within his own party, to dominate the debate and erode public support.

Moreover, the President has moved forward with his health-care proposal at the same time as NAFTA. His support for NAFTA has often seemed perfunctory. His commitment to his health-care plan, in comparison, is plainly one of passion--a contrast that has not gone unnoticed among wavering Capitol Hill Democrats.

The President will need to show a similarly passionate commitment to NAFTA if the agreement is to pass. It will take firm, focused leadership to persuade the American people and to shepherd the agreement through Congress. Just as important, however, will be the substance of President Clinton’s leadership.

Substance matters, because there is more at stake in NAFTA than our relations with Mexico, or even jobs. The debate over NAFTA is a debate over ideas--between two competing visions of America’s international role.

On one side stand the proponents of free trade; opposite are the apologists for protectionism. More fundamentally, the NAFTA debate pits traditional internationalists against resurgent isolationists.

All former Presidents have endorsed NAFTA. President Clinton has publicly identified himself with them and the internationalism they represent--a tradition reaching back to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Democrat or Republican, postwar Presidents believed America was not only in the world, but of it. Their vision of an America actively engaged in world affairs had consequences far beyond the conduct of the Cold War. Their leadership--and U.S. leadership internationally--was instrumental in the creation of a global economic regime based on the principles of free trade and open markets.

The end of the Cold War has reopened the debate on America’s role in the world, a debate interrupted by America’s entry into World War II. The voices of isolationism and protectionism can again be heard. They stretch across the political spectrum from far left to far right.

The new isolationists opposed Desert Storm. The new protectionists oppose NAFTA. These two groups overlap, and with good reason: Both reject the internationalist tradition of every postwar U.S. President from Harry S. Truman to Bush.

NAFTA stands squarely within this tradition. It builds on the success of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement concluded in 1987. That agreement has done much to open trade and economic cooperation with our northern neighbor and largest trading partner. As Ronald Reagan said, the U.S.-Canada agreement firmly rejects “beggar-thy-neighbor” policies. Instead, it embraces the high ideals and tangible benefits of free trade.

So does NAFTA. It should be seen as part of an ambitious economic agenda that includes conclusion of the Uruguay Round of global trade negotiations, extension of NAFTA to other Latin American countries and negotiation of free-trade agreements with the vibrant economies of East Asia and the fledgling free markets of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Passing NAFTA and pursuing this agenda will require President Clinton to articulate a vision of an America strong and secure enough to seize the opportunities of an open-trade and investment system.

Robust growth, flexible markets and rising productivity are all part of that vision. But so must be an appeal to the American spirit of optimism. This is because the argument against NAFTA, stripped of slippery statistics and inflammatory rhetoric, is essentially an argument based on fear: Fear that America lacks the confidence to compete; fear that Americans lack the courage to change.

The fate of NAFTA will tell us much about the style and substance of Clinton’s leadership. It will clarify how the United States, with the Cold War over, views its role in a complex world. Most important, it will show what sort of people we, as Americans, want to be.