NAFTA south of the border:

...More disconcerting, he would stumble a few feet and as a humid August heat wave...

...Currently, according to Department of Commerce data, GDP is running WHEN TO CRY 'UNCLE' at about $5.7 trillion while interest on the debt is about $200 THE LINE-ITEM VETO billion per year, hence 3.5 percent...

...Such a veto power-parallel to the notion of emergency powPride in "Mexicanidad" has always been essential to shap- ers in usage for hundreds of years in the Roman Republic being and maintaining Mexico's cohesiveness and political sta- fore Caesar-would be limited in time...

...It was, I must its January 1 ratification deadline in the U.S...

...A white said, "I have nothing today...

...Here danger lingers...

...6: 24 September 1993 Commonweal As NAFTA moves into the home stretch, so does the Mexi- focus as a trustee should, not merely on immediate constituent can political system...

...Salinas is gamcutting state subsidies and government spending, transforming bling that NAFTA will pass, his hand-picked successor will critical sectors of banking, finance, and agriculture, and open- triumph, and in his mid-forties, he will emerge as the country's ing Mexico to foreign investment...

...Cardenas, has already declared himself a candidate for the July But no matter which way NAFTA goes, it means problems 1994 elections...

...but just cause for military attack diation in most of the situations of con- must be determined in light of what Protemporary conflict...

...Cuauhtemoc Cardenas's candiinclusion in the 1988 U.S.-Canadian trade accord...

...I need some- could hear the sirens of police cars caught in traffic on their thing to eat," he announced...

...South Asia and former Soviet republics requires more effort and attention...

...criticism of Mexico May the free market forces be with you...

...As part of the amendment I would Envision a line-item veto with real fiscal teeth that recommend that the Department of Commerce's accounting and is not a threat to the traditional balance of powers reporting practices, as used for the fiscal year ended October between the White House and the Congress...

...While the World Bank seems poised to grant loans, many fear these provisions will be ignored in an investment and development frenzy following approval...

...North" too conspicuously engulf Mexico...

...even louder, pointing belligerently at the man...

...The cold ed, politically and ethically...

...It is an unspoken rule that you do not meet a stranger's eyes in New York...

...The president, acting in a fiduciary role, stitutionally mandated authority, than the designees of some like the receiver of a troubled business enterprise, has extraor- cabal of bankers and other creditors from Tokyo, Bern, and dinary but short-lived fiscal powers...

...he oversaw a dramatic rise of investor confidence as capital poured Salinas received a major setback in July when a U.S...

...office-holder with a nationwide mandate, can be expected to In a fashion, the process envisioned is very like a voluntary Commonweal 24 September 1993: 7 national receivership...

...The Clinton administration conducted a scrupulous review of the acTHE AGE OF RESTRAINT cusation that Iraqi intelligence agents were FOUR CASES implicated in the plot...

...I'm homeless...

...A breakthrough tion, and, with tariff reduction, Mexicans went on a spending came in mid-August, however, as the United States, Mexico, spree...

...Such a potent fiscal veto would nationalism are real possibilities, should the "Colossus of the be subject to the usual two-thirds override by congressional vote...

...My week seemed to culminate in two other incidents...

...establish a new fact-finding commission and impose trade For Salinas, the maneuvering has been tricky, and critics sanctions or fines if any of the three countries fails to enforce abound...

...At another station a man was being led away in handcuffs THE VIEW FROM MEXICO by two undercover policemen...

...tions of our citizenry...

...He lifted a brown paper bag concealing a bottle, Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, moves toward took a swig, narrowed his eyes, and burped at me...

...Since and to move toward international coop- this question is whether any use of force eration, but it also requires sustained can ever be justified, it yields the prethought and disciplined policy regarding sumption against all use of force as the the use of force...

...If Congress does not want the president to or Medicare expansions...

...On an- Flynn was starring in Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk, both other train, an anxious young man reached into the plastic bag playing at the Thalia, a recently reopened revival house at 95th he was carrying and took out a can of insecticide or insect re- Street...

...Four examples of U.S...

...stake for the United States-the fear of lost jobs, environmenThe next day I was hurrying down another of the narrow tal degradation, increased migration, and import surges-the little streets that crisscross lower Manhattan when I came upon question of what NAFTA means for Mexico has hardly arisen a crowd of fifty or more people gawking at some sort of vi- north of the Rio Grande...

...The United States seized over half of Mexico's territory more than a century ago, and since then, it seems to Mexicans, we have tried to buy what we didn't take...

...But for U.S...

...Moreover, if the numbers are genditions, can readily be modeled on the benign aspects of re- erated under the auspices of a cabinet officer, then the Senate ceivership practices used to resuscitate troubled businesses...

...Thus, where expecta- mark its expiration...

...oil, something many Mexicans fear Salinas will bargain away...

...tered a reasonably well-dressed young man staring at me in what For many in Mexico today, this has never seem.A d I took to be a plaintive way...

...I heard him begin...

...the president resisted calls to take action-including political accusations that he was too timid to use force-before finally deciding to bomb Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad...

...There are Inevitably, given its role in world pol- clearly multiple "just causes" for coordiitics, the United States is confronted with nated international action against the Iraqi choices of engagement, passivity, or me- regime...

...may be used with the greatest restraint...

...After all, it's the only Clinton polwas widespread voter fraud, and Salinas's opponent, Cuauhtemoc icy with major Republican support...

...Believing that dacy, along with the opposition of a number of splinter parties, economic reform is the key to democratization and social re- maverick politicians, and intellectuals, provides a steady choform, Salinas aggressively dismantled Mexico's statist and pro- rus of condemnation over the price Salinas is willing to pay to tectionist policies...

...When In spite of the near universal support, the threat of nuclear proliferation pro- restraint is not imposed from outside, the the methodical decision making, and the vides a striking contrast to the low-tech policy choices become more complicat- high-tech precision of the Tomahawks, my warfare pursued within states...

...The special veto power would enable the preswill fit the glorious "win-win" scenario promised by its pro- ident to eliminate any item in any new spending measure or ponents...

...federinto Mexico...

...The Spanish colonial bureaucratic credo of "do little and do it slowly" clearly clashes with the U.S...

...Neither Mexico, Salinas, nor the PRI can risk appearing "fooled" Envision a constitutional amendment that permitted the presby the Yankees, but NAFTA will require at least fifteen years ident to be the nation's fiscal fiduciary during short periods of of restructuring and adjustment within Mexico, not all of which financial crisis...

...When he ordered the attack, If he Cold War is over, but the cases when force may be the only way to using twenty-three Tomahawk missiles, threat and use of force are avoid aggression and to determine how it Mr...

...And it NAF 1'A SOUTH OF THE BORDER struck me as even stranger that one of the policemen was at HIGH STAKES, BIG HOPES, REAL FEARS least a head shorter than the handcuffed man, who himself was not tall...

...PAUL BAUMANN of a shampoo in a TV commercial...

...The post- it, just cause would seem to be present: cold war world has generated a multiplicity The Iraqi plan to kill Bush sustains the jusof threats, which defy a single strategy and tified reputation of Saddam Hussein as an promise not catastrophic damage, but international criminal, indicted both on chaos within nations which can spill over human-rights grounds at home and by to international conflict...

...Forest University...

...NAFTA environment and protect workers' rights...

...The purpose is not to mul- starting point for thinking about invoking tiply ideas for using U.S...

...he suddenly burst out laughing like a practiced extra in a hor- The quality of public life in New York can be as oppressive ror film...

...Certainly, there NAFTA now seems likely...

...Only the president, as the single will he might do mischief with...

...These agreements would would be Mexico's ticket out of the third world...

...In the midst of a continuing world recession, Salinas sold his policies and NAFTA as Mexico's "way out": NAFTA would "miraculously" jump-start the economy, providing jobs, raising wages, increasing both selection and consumption of goods...

...This was innocuous enough until way to the scene...

...Amid cries of "selling out," power broker for decades to come...

...When the Asian man offered some ing citizens walking in the opposite direction...

...Had I been justly rebuked...

...vote of both houses...

...I, too, longed to unfurl my sails for the Caribbean in pellent and sent people scurrying as he sprayed himself from pursuit of "heavily laden" Spanish galleons, not to mention the head to toe...

...But whose numbers should be trusted in determining GDP and the percentage of interest being paid on the debt...

...Congress, special interest groups, and the public debate whether NAFTA is "good" for us but remain selectively ignorant of NAFTA's importance for Mexico...

...Three black women, one with a baby in This indifference is nothing new...

...In a sense, discussion of NAFTA in the United States is the ultimate goal NAFTA was born when Salinas sold George Bush on Mexico's of "getting to" Mexico's oil...

...He finally fell away only to affix policeman on a motor scooter had placed himself in the midhimself immediately to one of Xanadu's more prosperous look- dle of this mounting drama...

...argument here is that the attack failed the war forced policymakers to think in terms criterion of restraint on both just-cause of a single massive threat with cosmic con- and just-means grounds...

...Salinas, who must soon choose his successor, has staked the These fears are well founded...

...will have ample opportunity during confirmation hearings to The mounting fiscal crisis faced by the republic as we close exact assurances concerning the consistency of the accounting out the century can likely be solved only by serious fiscal re- practices to be employed...

...Although the PRI has won every presidential election its labor or environmental laws...

...If the United States father, Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico's most popular modern pres- is afraid of losing its jobs, Mexico is sensitive to NAFTA's cost ident (1934-1940), still perceived as a Washington, Lincoln, to its sovereignty and national identity...

...But NAFTA's fate, either way, will have Commonweal 24 September 1993: 5 far-reaching implications for Mexico's economic and political for Mexican sovereignty, which Salinas seems to be comprostability, particularly for President Carlos Salinas de Gortari mising...

...Salinas seems intent on undermining ical fallout should Mexico be swept up in a wave of buying in Cardenas's legacy...

...But even if NAFTA passes, a new sometimes, the national good in terms of the longterm welfare Mexican president and the old party will still have to deal with of our posterity as a constituency-the as yet unborn generaits implementation and rising expectations...

...The Caribbean, I underwith a flourish by piling up rings of white foam on his thickly stand, is not the wealthiest place in the world...

...She was On the subway a barefoot man in remarkably filthy clothes forcibly shouted down by the policeman...

...The economy flourished, reversing the 1980s' lega- al judge ordered the government to provide an environmental cy of stagflation...

...Maybe I had missed whatever excitement surrounded the arrest, but I was struck by how matter-of-fact everyone on the subway platform seemed...

...This could lead to continual U.S...

...WILLIAM K. MEYERS placements would occur in the normal balance of powers William K. Meyers is associate professor of history at Wake between Congress and the Executive...

...chant, "just "Thanks for dropping in, Harry...

...Our ignorance, prejudice, and arrogance are reflected in the way we refer to Mexican immigrants as "illegal aliens," when most of them are migrating to lands we took from them...

...The PRI's control of Mexico, Salinas's needs as defined by a wide spectrum of interest groups, but on place in history, and his continuing role in the party all hinge the nation as a constituent...

...And in so ment by a simple formula, readily applied...

...Much of Cardenas's appeal derives from his for Salinas and the PRI...

...No permanent disdoing, our future as well...

...Every resort to force must draw clear lines regarding the extreme using nonconventional weapons...

...press coverage has concentrated, as always, on what's at what...

...Salinas restructured the debt, reduced infla- impact statement on the proposed agreement...

...Underlying every favorable PRI's legitimacy and survival on NAFTA's success...

...Furthermore, who will enforce the provisions...

...What is the wealth- sort of explanation to the cop, one of the women screamed iest country in the world...

...While slow to understand Mexico's problems with poverty, we're quick to exploit its wealth through direct and indirect investment or, when necessary, invasion...

...The Supreme Court continues in its tradiUnder the present equation, only the office of president can tional role as referee of the Constitution, and the chief execube expected, if only sporadically, to take a more transcendent tive receives no permanent enhancement of power that at his view of the nation's welfare...

...If the baseline data are derived from accounting a veto, created by constitutional amendment and practices used in a fixed, past year, any future manipulation of crafted to preserve our historical democratic tra- the data would be minimized...

...How did he know about my flea...

...A national identity crisis and a backlash of Mexican any item in any prior enactment...

...Attacking Mexico's crippling inflation, rising join NAFTA...

...Cardenas stood deficit, but forces a devaluation of the peso, furthering domination by U.S...

...Even with the supplemental agreements there are questions about where the estimated $7- 10 billion to finance a massive cleanup along the U.S.-Mexico border will come from...

...olent confrontation...

...counting procedures used by Commerce were proper...

...Berlin...

...On the face of sequences if deterrence failed...

...From the Korean peninsula to the moral and political logic of restraint civilians were killed in the neighborhood...

...Related to this is the problem of rising expectations...

...policy choic- both torture and treachery-was particuastating consequences for the civilian pop- es this summer illustrate that identifying larly appropriate and proportionate (eight ulation...

...Only the president will view, at least on NAFTA's success...

...After all, smoke, mirrors, and accounting gamesmanship are commonplace at budget time in D.C...

...Three are critical...

...muscle, but to "Apparently they have no qualms about military means...

...policies of aggression abroad...

...The arrival of a defined bility...

...We're often both patronizing and heavy-handed in trying to dictate Mexico's domestic and foreign policy, lecturing sanctimoniously on its corruption, its responsibility for our drug problem, how it should vote in the United Nations, what price it should set for its oil, what role it should play in the third world...

...Washingcould draw, with the vivid needed today, because the discipline im- ton columnist Jim Hoagland expressed the images to support it, from a survey of the posed on both super powers by the threat prevailing opinion when he endorsed the summer's news...

...Whenever the total of all interest paid on U.S...

...While report, a menacing burp...

...not only identify a just cause, but one 8: 24 September 1993 Commonweal...

...By the In the event that Congress voted to challenge Commerce's nature of things, Congress's current political equation results reporting, the amendment would also contain a grant of jurisin, de facto, a "beggar-thy-grandchildren" fiscal policy that threat- diction to the Supreme Court to immediately hear and decide ens to drown the economic future of coming generations in un- the case, determining it on the sole issue of whether the acpaid bills...

...and further attempts to meddle in its internal affairs...

...As long as Mexico's economy seems healthy and unemployment, and enormous foreign debt, Salinas privatized NAFTA on course, their criticisms have been muted and Salinas government businesses, earning over half a billion dollars, while has remained popular...

...And in the Congress the yearly tidal wave of constituent-gratifying ap- second instance, any fiscal veto can be reversed by a two-thirds propriations...

...This is a sensible precaution, and I usually observe it...

...Such expectations are extremely high, especially where a full third of the population is under fifteen...

...straints...

...The formula would be easy to compute...

...It was Lazaro Cardenas who championed the United States that not only increases its balance-of-payment Mexican agrarian reform, which Salinas undid...

...for a Clintonized and many still question whether he really won...

...and, most importantly, Cardenas nationalized Mexico's and his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI...

...Salinas preached a vision of Mexico that included it with- and Canada announced the successful negotiation of conin one giant hemispheric trading bloc with 360 million consumers tentious side agreements to NAFTA designed to preserve the and a vital part of the world's largest, richest market...

...In Mexico NAFTA has been a constant focus of speculation and debate for over four years...

...Government indebtedness of all kinds TO TAME THE DEFECIT exceeded a fixed percentage of GDP (say, 3.5 percent), then the president's line-item veto power would kick in...

...It doesn't surprise Mexicans that the U.S...

...And it's defimatted hair as though he were demonstrating the luxuriousness nitely not as hot as New York in August...

...Such 1992, be adopted...

...During my week of travail, Errol repeat the whole routine, including the maniacal laugh...

...do it...

...In the distance you besieged us with the usual petition...

...WORLD WATCH The first case which illustrates the point was the bombing of Iraq in response to an intelligence finding that Saddam Hussein sought to assassinate former President J. Bryan Hehir George Bush...

...BRUCE W. BURTON It is far better that any future receiver of a besieged American Bruce W. Burton is professor of law at South Texas College fisc be a self-imposed one, an elected president exercising con- of Law in Houston, Texas...

...Should NAFTA fail to produce jobs, better wages, and crisis would trigger the veto power and the end of the crisis, or more consumer goods for Mexicans, Mexico could revert to the end of the current fiscal year, whichever came later, would protectionism, statism, and nationalism...

...Congresspersons cannot be expected heroically to resist de- Please note that no violence is done to the traditional sepamands for more submarines, AIDS research, farm subsidies, ration of powers...

...Finally, there is the problem of how NAFTA will actually work...

...These are not apt to arise within the Congress...

...Clinton was supported by Democrats pervasive in the world today...

...But now it's "showtime...

...What will be the politand FDR rolled into one...

...From the heart of Europe of total war-a discipline which yielded attack, and noted that the targeting of the to the Horn of Africa the use of force is restraint often if not all the time-is now intelligence headquarters-a home for pursued with primitive methods but dev- gone...

...Hesitantly, I asked him if he need- more true and foreboding, as the North American ed directions...

...The post-cold war era fessor James Childress has called the "oridoes offer new opportunities to plan for ginal question" about the use of force...

...Although there will be a fight for sixty years, Salinas's election in 1988 was the closest ever, among the Democrats, approval in the U.S...

...capital, and the loss of self-determination, real or perceived...

...Congress...

...Fiscal crisis" would be defined in the amendtions meet reality will determine Mexico's future...

...He finished more ship-shape Olivia de Havilland...

...On the contrary, such legislators can enjoy this type of fiscal veto in the first instance, then Congress inevitably be expected to collaborate in logrolling through can demonstrate the discipline needed to avoid it...

...IF here is an old Mexican saying: "Poor Mexico, so However, turning down one relatively quiet street I encoun- far from God and so close to the United States...

...and Republicans and by the general pubThat is the conclusion one The emphasis on restraint is doubly lic, as expressed in polling data...