Negotiation & NAFTA
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Negotiation is an act of compromise. The mere agreement to discuss an issue via the process of negotiation represents a willingness to consider non-aggressive solutions. In the realm of politics, negotiation and compromise are the meat-and-potatoes of daily life. So it has been for the debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement - NAFTA - during the past few months. NAFTA posed, for the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch of the United States government, respectively, an important socio-economic issue in which the two parties found themselves lined up on opposite sides. Negotiation, in the public forum and in classic behind-the-scenes backroom maneuvering, was the key tool that allowed President Bill Clinton his NAFTA victory in the House of Representatives - by compromising on enough minor elements of the proposal to enable a majority of legislators, his nominal opponents on the issue, to support a free trade agreement as expounded in NAFTA. Few negotiations begin from clean-cut, black/white positions of opposition: particularly when the parties involved are so numerous, or the issues involved are so wide-ranging. The North American Free Trade Agreement, in simplistic terms, encourages the evolution of tariff-free trade among the North American continental nations sharing common borders with the United States: Mexico and Canada. As each of the nations involved has its own traditions, culture and form of democratic government, so, too, do the barrie
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ot stop opposition forces from rallying around the implications of a negative answer (Samuelson, 1993a, pp. 54-55). Fitting hand-in-glove with the fearful answers to these misperceived simplifications was an ugly reality undercutting whatever legitimate claims for consideration the opposition to NAFTA attempted to make: a strong element of anti-Mexican cultural bias flavored the entire opposition argument to congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Opposition to NAFTA was almost exclusively targeted against the intent to expand economic ties with Mexico; Canada, according to Watson & Kay (1993, p. 52), the third party to the agreement, was considered "one of us:" attitudes expounded by Republican conservative gadfly Patrick Buchanan, who defended his anti-NAFTA-with-Mexico stance as "a moment to define a 'new patriotism' of 'America First'" (Samuelson, 1993b, p. 30).
Nevertheless, the positions staked out by the pro-/anti-NAFTA support groups were generally along traditional lines throughout the early months of 1993 - until Ross Perot and his "People for the American Way" movement entered the picture in opposition.
Perot's emergence as a national political figure is disturbing to the status quo of
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Approximate Word count = 3501
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)
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