Now for those that blame Clinton for this lets take a look a timeline to who first proposed this.
www.fina-nafi.org/eng/integ/chronologie.asp?langue=eng&menu=integGee Wiz! First proposed by President Reagan, First signed by George H. Bush.
"In 1992, U.S. President George Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed The North American Trade Agreement proposed by Mexico. The agreement was designed to eliminate barriers to trade and investment in North America. Congress had given special right to President Bush which enabled him to negotiate with Canada and Mexico and leave Congress voting for or against agreement without amendment."
lepo.it.da.ut.ee/~illing/NAFTA2.htm_______________________________________________
I will admit that a Replublican president would have never been able to get this passed. It took Clinton to twist enough Democrat arms to get is passed and a lot of pork. Just like a Democrat president could never get immigration amnesty passed it will take a Republican president to twist enough Republican arms to get it passed.
The Great sovereignty Sellout
by William P. Hoar
For all of the obnoxious, escalating, and conflicting claims and counter claims in television ads about jobs potentially gained or lost, the real importance of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was frequently disregarded in a fracas that came to resemble a professional wrestling performance. Yet the real issue was standing there in the background -for people really don't get so filed up about the tariff schedules with a Mexican economy three percent that of the United States. The principle involved is whether the United States of America is to stand resolute as a sovereign nation or become a cog in the machinery of the new world order.
President Clinton himself said on November 10th that NAFTA "has become the symbol of where we want to go in the world." Other pro-NAFTA spokesmen predicted that if NAFTA were defeated, there would be dire consequences for the American economy if not the world economy, and a dozen other calamities. Vice President Al Gore, in the debate during which Ross Perot performed so poorly, went so far as to cite NAFTA as another Louisiana Purchase. Yet, even a top NAFTA proponent acknowledged that, in candor, "if NAFTA never happens, you wouldn't notice it."
Coming From Behind
The President's November 17th political victory in the House of Representatives, where opposition was the greatest and where by most accounts opponents held the upper hand until the final week, came by a 234-200 vote. The last-minute push was alluded to by the President: "We had to come from a long way back to win this fight." The Senate vote three days later in support of NAFTA (61-38) was anticlimactic.
A decision to compete in the "new world economy" was the goal, asserted the President, who in actuality owed his win to Republicans. In both Houses of Congress, some three-quarters of the GOP lawmakers voted in favor of NAFTA. Meanwhile, most of the Democrats opposed the agreement championed by their President -- especially members from the industrial Midwest, minority members, and members with strong labor union ties. The agreement was also opposed by top members of the Democratic Party leadership, including House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Whip David Bonior of Michigan.
In the final tally in the House, 132 Republicans and 102 Democrats voted for NAFTA, while 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and one independent voted against it. In the Senate, 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats voted for the agreement, while 10 Republicans and 28 Democrats voted against it.
So what is behind the five volumes and 15 pounds of lawyerese linking the economies of Canada, Mexico, and the United States? Look behind the blaring commercials. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a member of the executive committee of the Trilateral Commission and a longtime power in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), called the vote on NAFTA the single most important decision that Congress would make during Mr. Clinton's first term. Indeed, Kissinger was fairly open in acknowledging this past summer in the Los Angeles Times that passage "will represent the most creative step toward a new world order taken by any group of countries since the end of the Cold War...." NAFTA "is not a conventional trade agreement," he noted, "but the architecture of a new international system."
Of course, Kissinger is not exhilarated at dry economics but at potential concentration of power. David Rockefeller, Kissinger's superior among the Trilateralists and CFR coterie, went so far as to say in the Wall Street Journal that he didn't "think that 'criminal' would be too strong a word to describe ... rejecting NAFTA." Exhorted Rockefeller: "Everything is in place -- after 500 years -- to build a true 'new world' in the Western Hemisphere."
Another proponent, Andrew Reding of the New School for Social Research, admitted in a Canadian publication that the passage of NAFTA, which he called "an incipient form of international government," would "signal the formation, however tentatively, of a new political unit -- North America." This is not idle speculation, for as Reding suggested, "with economic integration will come political integration." Nobel Prize winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz had his remarks translated from Spanish for the New York Times on November 9th, saying that NAFTA "is a step toward the construction of a genuine international order." Representative Robert Matsui (D-CA), another NAFTA supporter, candidly admitted that the agreement brings with it a surrender of American "independence." And NAFTA supporter Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has bragged about the "iron fist" of the pact. No, NAFTA is not about free trade.
New Environmental Teeth
Just in case there is any doubt about the teeth in the NAFTA agreement, consider the candid statements of U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, the negotiator of the "side agreement" on the environment. Kantor said officially that "no nation can lower labor or environmental standards, only raise them .... "Which is hardly reassuring when the U.S. bureaucracy already calls mudholes "wetlands" and sends OSHAcrats willy-nilly to fine and to close businesses. Kantor stated explicitly in the Wall Street Journal on August 17th that "no country in the agreement can lower its environmental standards -- ever." Carol Browner, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who boasts that NAFTA "promotes region-wide environmental planning on an unprecedented scale," obviously expects the treaty to give more power to environmental zealots. In October, Browner told the U.S. Senate: "The NAFTA package will dramatically increase enforcement. The environmental agreement obligates countries, for the first time, to enforce environmental laws, and backs these obligations up with sanctions."
Yet, even conservative members of Congress pretended that these new powers were not so onerous, when history shows that bureaucrats move to expand their clout and certainly will do so when given more to wield.
Before the final vote on this "free trade" bill, President Clinton went as protectionist as he needed, agreeing to add tariffs on products to get the votes of certain congressmen. Seedy deal-making with public monies had veteran Capitol Hill observers shaking their heads. Swaps for votes were cut on such products as beef, cucumbers, peanuts, wheat, wine, and Florida citrus, sugar, and winter vegetables.
Creation of a North American Development Bank was the price of one vote, while others got promises for Small Business Administration programs, government buildings, regulatory relief, and defense contracts. There were sticks among the carrots: One congressman was reportedly menaced, among other threats, with having his district stripped of military facilities unless he voted for NAFTA.
Dallas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), reported the Journal of Commerce, traded her NAFTA vote for a commitment from an Administration official that six C-17 cargo planes would be purchased from her region. As the paper reported, that "promise to order six planes -- instead of the four recommended by Clinton budget advisers -- means Rep. Johnson's vote could eventually cost $700 million and perhaps as much as $1.4 billion." A disgusted Patrick J. Buchanan commented in his syndicated column: "All week long we were witnesses to an astonishing spectacle -- the open selling of America by men and women entrusted with her governance. For 72 hours Congress was like the 'pit' in the Chicago commodities market when word hits that the corn harvest will be 20 percent smaller than expected. It will be a long time before the stench of bribery leaves the Capitol."
Even cynics had difficulty defending more tariffs in a supposed free-trade deal. Representative Tom Lewis (R-FL), who was a key in the Florida delegation that Clinton needed to turn, stated he had "a disdain for a system where you go down to the wire and you almost have to pawn your vote. I don't like this way of doing business." Nevertheless, he did so and voted for NAFTA.
Even with all the rancid pork on the table, many were still wondering: What was that smell? Actually, it's the new world odor.
