From: DowJones@andrew.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican
Subject: Clinton, Salinas Agendas On Free Trade Might Not Mesh
Date: 6 Jan 93 06:26:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.4fGkV0a00Uf9A0pGls
Organization: Doctoral student, Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


  

  By Dianna Solis  

  MEXICO CITY -- When President-elect Clinton shows up in Texas this
Friday to talk free trade with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari,
he should be ready for horse-trading.  

  The first meeting between the two will take place in Austin as debate
opens in the U.S. Congress over approval of the North American Free-Trade
Agreement. President-elect Clinton has said he supports Nafta, as the
treaty is called, but that parallel pacts on the environment and labor
are needed.  

  For his part, President Salinas says, "We have issues that we are very
interested in introducing . . . I would not call them parallel agreements
but additional themes of the bilateral agenda."  

  Though Clinton views Nafta as a high priority, a spokesman said the
incoming administration won't send Mickey Kantor, the designated new
U.S. trade representative, or Warren Christopher, the nominee for secretary
of state, to the Texas meeting. The Clinton camp fears their presence
could convert the meeting into a negotiating session.  

  "We're not going to get into a long, detailed discussion of Nafta or
anything like that," Clinton said Monday. "We want to get to know each
other."  

  But in once-protectionist Mexico, it is clear Salinas wants to quickly
capitalize on the honeymoon the new U.S. president will enjoy with Congress.
Thus, in the last month, the Mexican government has moved to counter
Nafta "add-ons" from the U.S. A chief Mexican proposal is for U.S. help
to finance the cleanup the U.S. wants of the Mexican side of the ragged,
2,000-mile border. The government has also stepped up calls to end abuses
of Mexicans laboring in the U.S.  

  Mexico's chief executive says that environmental concerns will be part
of the agenda. But the cost of the border cleanup and infrastructure
buildup should be shared jointly, President Salinas said in an interview
last month. The 12-nation European Community, he noted, has a variety
of assistance funds established to support lesser-developed nations within
the region.  

  Says Jorge Bustamante, a university president who advised Mexico's
Nafta negotiators, "The message is going to be: If you want more in Nafta
that costs more, you have to foot the bill."  

  Labor issues are likely to be particularly thorny, says Bustamante.
President-elect Clinton is under considerable pressure to provide retraining
for U.S. workers displaced by Nafta. And U.S. labor unions are pointing
to potential unfair competition from Mexican workers, including child
laborers. In Mexico, the daily minimum wage is about equal to the hourly
minimum wage of the U.S.  

  In Mexico, though, when the U.S. speaks of labor, Mexicans think of
migration. Many Mexican immigrants work under substandard conditions
in the U.S., notes Dr. Bustamante. "Who is clean to speak about labor
standards?" asks the academic testily.  

  Moreover, the upward harmonization of labor standards, suggested by
some U.S. politicians and activists, could be costly for the U.S. Consider
just this example: Mexican severance pay for a fired worker is generally
equal to three months' pay, plus 20 days' wages for each year worked.
 

  Mexico's request for cleanup funds will not be easy for Clinton to
accept. Sally Shelton, an investor consultant and senior fellow at Georgetown
University, says that given the U.S. debt load of more than $3 trillion,
it is unlikely the U.S. will be spending more. Mexico's Foreign Debt
Mexico has a public-sector foreign debt of about $73 billion.  

  Far more inviting would be changes in Mexico's foreign investment law,
suggests Shelton. Late last year, Mexico announced it would revamp its
foreign investment law. Though the proposed law was expected to be debated
in the Mexican Congress before Christmas, its delivery has been delayed.
 

  11 26 AM