Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 13, 1993                   TAG: 9309030385
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BILL CLINTON: FREE TRADER?

During the presidential campaign, Clinton waffled for months over whether he would back the North American Free Trade Agreement. As president, he has continued to cater to Democratic constituency groups that oppose NAFTA, or that ostensibly want environmental and labor safeguards to the treaty. But Clinton has come out clearly in support.

Now, with the Tokyo summit agreement to reduce tariffs on some 18 manufactured items, Clinton and the other struggling leaders of industrialized nations have set the stage for resumed talks on a revised General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. If Clinton sustains a full-court press for liberalized trade, despite cries of protest from within his own party, he could help pull off a major boost for global prosperity, while avoiding the worst pitfalls of protectionism.

Protectionism continues apace, of course. President Bush, his free-trade rhetoric notwithstanding, imposed new quotas on textile imports, limited the imports of computer semiconductors, and extended quotas on machine tools, steel and a number of other products, including peanuts.

Protectionists anticipated that, with a Democrat in the White House, pleas for higher trade barriers would not fall on deaf ears. Never mind that tariffs and quotas on imports already cost the American consumer some $100 billion annually - about $1,700 per family of four. (Robert Crandall of the Brookings Institution has estimated, for example, that import quotas on cars raise the price on average compact automobiles by about $2,500. Meanwhile, Americans pay double the world price of sugar.)

The special interests are sure to mount a full-court press of their own if they believe their preferential treatment is threatened. But Clinton may yet prove a realist on trade issues. Realist because, whether we like it or not, the American economy is interwoven into the global economy.

Protectionism helped intensify the worldwide Great Depression and the rise of political extremism during the 1930s. Since World War II, expansion of trade has been a powerful engine of democracies' economic growth.

But now the industrial world's growth has slowed. Growth in job formation and household income is anemic. And the United States can't turn around the situation by itself. If vibrant growth is to resume, it is clear the Gordian Knots impeding liberalization of trade must be broken.

It's not just someone else's job at stake. According to a recent study of NAFTA, Virginia would be among the beneficiaries of freer trade. The value of Virginia exports to Mexico has grown at a rate surpassing the nation's. Last year, Virginia employers did a thriving business selling transportation equipment, industrial machinery and computers, chemicals, foods and other products to Mexico.

Under NAFTA, exports - and the jobs based on them - would continue to grow. And a new GATT agreement would generate new jobs worldwide, including here.

The protectionists and Luddites - Perot supporters and Democratic lobbies alike - may rejoice at a federal judge's recent ruling that NAFTA cannot be signed without an environmental impact statement assuring protracted, obstructionist litigation. But let us hope Clinton himself accepts the fact of a worldwide marketplace, and the long-term promise it holds for Americans' opportunities and quality of life.