Trading up of down?

President Bill Clinton's bold kickoff of health-care reform last month momentarily eclipsed all other business in Washington. Even the euphoria of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord seemed to fade in the bright lights of the president's medicine show. But that high state of excitement could not last; Russia, Bosnia, Somalia, and even NAFTA are still with us.

When it comes to NAFTA (the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement), the issues to be decided have serious political and economic implications. Is NAFTA an economic marriage made in heaven or a pact with the devil of neoliberal economics, leading to the death of the American Dream? Is it, for manufacturers, a road to the promised land, and, for labor, a path into the wilderness? Is it environmental catastrophe or harbinger of hemispheric eco-consciouness? Rarely-- at least in recent times--has a trade issue led to such contradictory judgments, volatile rhetoric, and strange bedfellows.

What is NAFTA? Perhaps the most dispassionate, thorough examination of the agreement is the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment's "U.S.Mexico Trade: Pulling Together or Pulling Apart?" It calls NAFTA "an unprecedented experiment in economic integration" between Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Over a period of ten-to-fifteen years, most tariffs would fall between the three North American countries, a giant trading block would be formed, and Mexico's economy would gradually be brought into line with those of its wealthier neighbors. The success of such a merger, NAFTA's proponents argue, would benefit not only the three countries, but eventually spread its benisons to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, enhancing those regions' economies and nurturing their recent experiments in democracy and political stability.

"All too dreamy if well-meaning," argue NAFTA's opponents. The first necessity is to take care of one's own. In their scenario, NAFTA would drastically, perhaps permanently, dislocate the U.S. economy. Not only would hundreds of thousands of jobs be siphoned off immediately to Mexico, but so would investment dollars needed to enhance U.S. competitiveness with Japan and Europe.

In our view, this criticism of NAFTA lacks historical context. A new economic order is not on the horizon; it is already here. The proposed NAFTA is but another signal that a long-term, fundamental economic shakedown is well underway. Like the movement of huge tectonic plates, this worldwide economic shift to freer market systems, transnational trading, and larger economic communities is seemingly unrelenting and irreversible. Regional trade agreements such as NAFTA can be a useful and necessary means of adjusting to the new economic order, an effective tool with which to help fashion the economic landscape of tomorrow--for the better.