Trading Blows

NOT KNOWING whether to laugh or cry, Latin America follows the NAFTA comedy of errors with its huge cast of players. There are, of course, the traditional enemies of free trade: labor leaders struggling for the survival of trade unions, and the “fair trade, anti-dumping” crowd of Rustbelt industrialists fearful of foreign competition. There are also various odd-balls in patriotic guise: WASPs scared to death of café-au-lait hordes invading the country; born-again populists fueling fears through 20-second television spots. But these have been joined by new and more subtle opponents of free trade, some of whom support NAFTA in order to hobble it with regulatory strings. Of these the new “green” socialists determined to keep Latin America as their own playground of pre—Industrial Revolution purity are the most influential.

It is difficult to explain to Latin Americans how the United States can be so nervous of free markets, immediately after American capitalism’s victory over Soviet socialism. But if there is one person responsible for NAFTA’s troubles, it is President Clinton. He arrived in Washington playing politics and trying to please everyone by negotiating side agreements, but ended up pleasing no one and doing lasting harm to U.S. relations with Latin America—especially, to the champions of free markets, the rule of law, and property rights in Mexico and the rest of our hemisphere.

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Carlos Ball

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NOT KNOWING whether to laugh or cry, Latin America follows the NAFTA comedy of errors with its huge cast of players. There are, of course, the traditional enemies of free trade: labor leaders struggling for the survival of trade unions, and the “fair trade, anti-dumping” crowd of Rustbelt industrialists fearful of foreign competition. There are also various odd-balls in patriotic guise: WASPs scared to death of café-au-lait hordes invading the country; born-again populists fueling fears through 20-second television spots. But these have been joined by new and more subtle opponents of free trade, some of whom support NAFTA in order to hobble it with regulatory strings. Of these the new “green” socialists determined to keep Latin America as their own playground of pre—Industrial Revolution purity are the most influential.

It is difficult to explain to Latin Americans how the United States can be so nervous of free markets, immediately after American capitalism’s victory over Soviet socialism. But if there is one person responsible for NAFTA’s troubles, it is President Clinton. He arrived in Washington playing politics and trying to please everyone by negotiating side agreements, but ended up pleasing no one and doing lasting harm to U.S. relations with Latin America—especially, to the champions of free markets, the rule of law, and property rights in Mexico and the rest of our hemisphere.