Saving the Treaty and Saving Jobs : Mexico’s president says: Let’s avoid hysteria

Far too much of the current debate over the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement--the historic treaty that would lay the groundwork for a powerful common market among the United States, Mexico and Canada--is being distorted by partisanship. A new study by University of California researchers on NAFTA’s potential impact can contribute to a more constructive discussion.

To be sure, some politicization was inevitable, especially given that NAFTA was negotiated during an election year when the U.S. economy has been such an eyesore. Both major political parties share the blame for this politicization. At times President Bush sounds like he’s peddling NAFTA as a magic elixir, guaranteed to cure everything that ails you. And so far his Democratic rival, Gov. Bill Clinton, has avoided taking a firm public stance for NAFTA, perhaps out of fear of alienating Democratic constituencies that oppose or have reservations about the treaty.

THE SIMPLISTIC VIEW: The NAFTA issue is far too complex a topic for a political stump speech, of course. Even so, many dispassionate observers agree that all three countries will benefit from it in the long run. The three North American economies are already deeply integrated, and underlying economic forces will continue to drive that process.

The risk in the current politicized atmosphere is that it casts NAFTA as a simple yes-or-no proposition with many Democrats against and many Republicans for. The Senate, which is expected to vote on the treaty next year, must not take such a simplistic view but instead must heed the wisdom of the Southwest Voter Research Institute. Its study, by professors at UCLA and UC Berkeley, conclude that NAFTA will be a net benefit for California, creating new jobs in the state. The analysts, however, have the intellectual integrity to warn that those employment gains could be nullified unless the U.S. and Mexican governments work hard to cushion the probable short-term impact of job losses in both countries. They propose an international development bank to fund projects to mitigate NAFTA’s effects. Nothing dramatic, to be sure, but key to making an epochal treaty work.

THE LONG-TERM VIEW: That message has not been lost on Mexico’s president, who is deeply committed to NAFTA and to the integrity of the bilateral negotiation with the United States. While politicians in this country may distort the truth about NAFTA from time to time, that is not the case with President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. He more than anyone else made NAFTA possible by opening up the Mexican economy. And now he is saying that the pact can go forward no matter who wins the U.S. election.

Like most thoughtful observers, Salinas admits that short-term problems with the treaty are inevitable and he proposes to overcome them not by renegotiating NAFTA--a long, complex process that might just grind down the treaty--but by implementing legislation drafted by Congress. That’s a sound, long-term view that U.S. politicians must take once election season is over.