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

DATE: SUNDAY, October 24, 1993                   TAG: 9401220005
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOHN ALOYSIUS FARRELL BOSTON GLOBE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

OLD-STYLE HORSE TRADING DOMINATES NAFTA DEBATE

A member of Congress, holding the latest whip count in his hand, studied the tout sheet recently for signs of how the ``yeas'' and ``nays'' will be cast on the North American Free Trade Agreement. ``It's doable,'' the lawmaker said, although the numbers looked discouraging. ``They have given the signal to deal.''

``They'' is the White House; the lawmaker is one of President Clinton's lieutenants. And the dealing offers a revealing glimpse at how the give and take of Congress affects government policy. Votes are being corralled with concessions to special interests and parochial concerns.

Take durum wheat, a hardy breed used to make pasta. Angry U.S. wheat farmers and agribusinesses contend that unfairly subsidized Canadian durum is taking away a traditional U.S. market in Mexico .

``We see an absolute flood tide of Canadian grain coming across the border, truckload after truckload, hour after hour, because of an unfair agreement,'' said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who, with five other senators from the Great Plains, sits on the Finance Committee. That's the committee with jurisdiction over NAFTA.

And so, the potential quid pro quo emerges: If the Clinton administration applies trade sanctions to Canadian wheat, the Plains States delegations will vote for NAFTA.

Already the administration has reached a rough understanding with the Plains states senators on the matter, and aides have drafted a proposed course to penalize Canada for what U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor now calls an ``unfair'' wheat subsidy.

For all the high-flying rhetoric, NAFTA is at heart a bread-and-butter issue, with real winners and losers:

Some high-tech, white-collar and modernized manufacturing industries would win when Mexico drops tariffs of about a dime on the dollar on U.S. exports.

Some blue-collar, union and farm workers would lose when low-cost Mexican labor - and the elimination of U.S. tariffs that average just under a nickel a dollar - lures industry south of the Rio Grande.

As with any economic issue decided by Congress, home-state businesses and influential industries are prodding their legislators to secure them a place on the winning side.

The pro-NAFTA forces are thought to be within reach of victory in the Senate while 40 to 70 votes short in the House.

Some competing industries are jockeying for the privilege of dealing. Such is the case with sugar and corn interests.

Mexicans are great consumers of corn, and U.S. corn suppliers hope to make fortunes if NAFTA is approved. But the U.S. sugar industry - the cane growers in the South and the sugar beet farmers of the West and the Midwest - fear that if U.S. corn syrup becomes a leading sweetener in Mexico, it will free cheap Mexican sugar for export to the United States.

Clinton and his aides have not been able ``to allay the fears of the sugar producers who are whispering in my ear about it,'' said Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. ``This is, for members from my state, an issue on which they will decide whether or not to vote for this measure.''