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In case you missed this ...

  In case you missed this --
  
   B>
   B> <HTML><PRE><I>.c The Associated Press</I></PRE></HTML>
   B>
   B>       The report was seen as the opening salvo in a Clinton campaign
   B> to persuade Congress to grant him the negotiating authority he
   B> needs to reach free trade agreements with other nations in Latin
   B> America.
   B>       But NAFTA opponents, including such traditional Democratic
   B> constituencies as organized labor and environmentalists, are
   B> already pledging an aggressive effort to defeat any attempt to
   B> expand NAFTA.
   B>       They characterized the administration's report as decidedly
   B> understated when compared with the benefits the administration had
   B> boasted about when it won congressional approval of NAFTA in late 1993.
   B>       ``More than three years of real life experience make it
   B> impossible for the administration to make the outrageous claims of
   B> benefits that they used to gain congressional approval of NAFTA in the
   B> first place,'' said Lori Wallach, director of Ralph Nader's
   B> Citizens Trade Campaign.
   B>       Jeff Faux, president of the labor-backed Economic Policy
   B> Institute, said the contrast between what the administration
   B> promised and the actual results was startling.
   B>       ``We were promised a trade surplus that would create 200,000
   B> jobs and instead we got a trade deficit that cost 250,000 jobs,'' he
   B> said.
   B>       America's trade balance with Mexico has gone from a surplus of
   B> $1.7 billion in 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, to a
   B> record deficit of $16.2 billion last year. The imbalance with
   B> Canada went from $10.8 billion in 1993 to $22.8 billion last year.
   B>       The report blamed the big deficits on unrelated factors such as
   B> the 1994 peso crisis in Mexico that triggered a severe recession in
   B> that country and argued that without NAFTA the deficit situation would
   B> have been worse.
   B>       But the administration's report conceded that it was sometimes
   B> difficult to pinpoint specific benefits from NAFTA due to the other
   B> factors at play.
   B>       ``It is challenging to isolate NAFTA's effects on the U.S.
   B> economy, since NAFTA has only been in effect for three years, and
   B> events such as the severe recession in Mexico, the depreciation of the
   B> Mexican peso and U.S. tariff reductions under the Uruguay Round have
   B> taken place during the same period,'' the report said.
   B>       The administration report, however, cited studies that it said
   B> showed the overall impact of NAFTA has been positive on a U.S.
   B> economy that is enjoying its lowest unemployment rates in 23 years.
   B>       ``Several studies conclude that NAFTA contributed to America's
   B> economic expansion,'' the report said. ``NAFTA had a modest
   B> positive effect on U.S. net exports, income, investment and jobs
   B> supported by exports.''
   B>       The report found even the positive impact was greater in certain
   B> sectors with U.S. exports now accounting for a bigger share of the
   B> Mexican market in textiles, transportation equipment, appliances and
   B> electronic goods.
   B>       The report said a study done by DRI-McGraw Hill, an economic
   B> consulting firm, suggested that the higher U.S. exports from the
   B> reduced Mexican trade barriers represented a gain of between 90,000 and
   B> 160,000 U.S. jobs. The report did not offer any estimate of
   B> U.S. jobs that might have been lost due to higher Mexican imports into
   B> the United States.
  
  
  ****************************************************************************
   /s/ Mike Dolan, Field Director, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen
  
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