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NAFTA sows discord on the right - North American Free Trade Agreement
Insight on the News, Oct 4, 1993 by Michael Rust
Summary: Although conservatives often view themselves as champions of free trade, a treaty going before Congress to create a North American trading bloc has divided the light. That rift may be symptomatic of a split between nationalists and internationalists.
As the North American Free Trade Agreement lurches toward Congress for a vote this fall, supporters and opponents agree on one thing -- it already has created a bull market in political fratricide.
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While Ross Perot has warned that NAFTA would create a "giant sucking sound" as jobs moved to Mexico, the loudest noise so far has been from commentators and politicians arguing over the effect the treaty would have on the American economy and the environment. But some treaty opponents are looking beyond those issues: They see the proposed North American trading bloc as a threat to national security, and the dispute could be a harbinger of further rifts on the American right between nationalists and internationalists.
One of those concerned about national security is Milton Copulos, president of the National Defense Council Foundation, a think tank in Arlington, Va. Copulos thinks it's "tragic" that many of his erstwhile colleagues on the right have let down their guard to support NAFTA, which was "negotiated without consideration for defense or security implications." And the bipartisan support for the deal -- both former President Bush and President Clinton back it -- is, in Copulos's view, only another strike against it.
"It's a bad deal, put together by an elite that is driven by their own self-interest," he says. "It has nothing whatsoever to do with what's in the best interest of the American people. The people who negotiated NAFTA forgot a long time ago which flag to salute."
But NAFTA's conservative supporters return the fire of Copulos and other treaty foes such as commentator Pat Buchanan. Denouncing the accord as the product of nefarious "elites" is "an interesting development, not an interesting argument," says Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. "You're going back to the 1960s -- the new socialists are right-wing protectionists." He calls anti-NAFTA conservatives "still a rump group," which he places "in the category of the Know-Nothings."
The treaty at the heart of this controversy would phase out barriers to the free movement of goods, services and investment among the U.S., Canada and Mexico over 15 years beginning in January. At 2,000 pages, it would seem to be a bureaucrat's dream more than a politician's headache. But public uneasiness over the economy has made NAFTA an unsteady pillar of Clinton's already wobbly economic program.
Opposition to NAFTA has spawned an unlikely group of bedfellows, drawing from both the left and right. Former presidential contenders Buchanan, Perot and Jesse Jackson all have spoken out against the agreement.
"America First" advocates such as Buchanan warn of the perfidy of foreign lobbyists who want NAFTA and of the danger of surrendering national sovereignty Consumer advocate Ralph Nader issues equally dire warnings about big business; labor unions decry what they consider the downward spiral of Mexican wages; and environmentalists choke at the thought of Mexican pollution standards. Dissident libertarians argue that side agreements dealing with environmental issues give government too much power, and supporters of immigration restrictions describe nightmare visions of open, unpatrolled southern borders.
Supporters have countered with a more sanguine vision of the future if the treaty gains approval in Congress: a booming southern market for U.S. goods. They cite figures showing that since Mexico lowered trade barriers in 1986, U.S. exports there have tripled. Many NAFTA advocates also see it as a preliminary movement toward removing barriers to free trade around the world.
Copulos says he favors bilateral agreements with Mexico, but not NAFTA. He insists that anyone who thinks there is free trade "is sadly mistaken. There ain't no such animal today." What the U.S. needs to look for is "advantageous trade, because that's what everybody else does."
Copulos and other NAFTA opponents on the right see free trade as a chimera that obscures the national interest. Copulos focuses his anti-treaty arguments on two key conservative foreign policy concerns -- defense and terrorism. He believes that the defense industrial base, which provides products essential to America's military power, is threatened by the treaty. This base already has been eroded by military downsizing and will be "greatly aggravated" by NAFTA, he says. Copulos maintains that Mexico has already targeted companies in about 75 U.S. industries that it intends to lure south of the border -- including as many as 40 industries essential to national defense.
Should these industries relocate, Copulos argues, U.S. defense strategists would have to rely on Mexico's goodwill to meet production goals in a crisis. There is no guarantee that foreign suppliers would support a U.S. war effort, NAFTA opponents say. But treaty supporters argue that free trade would draw the two countries together and that lower costs would result from the relocation of industry. They also say that defense products should be available as cheaply as possible if they are vital to security. Copulos, however, worries about what he sees as Mexico's potential for political instability.
