
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 14, 1993                   TAG: 9308140146
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

TREATY ACCORDS REACHED

Trade negotiators from three countries announced environmental and labor safeguards Friday for the North American Free Trade Agreement, but the cool response from key members of Congress signaled a tough ratification battle ahead.

Negotiators from the United States, Mexico and Canada simultaneously announced the side agreements to NAFTA, which is designed to create the world's largest single marketplace.

"The growth that will come from creating such a large market enhances our ability to compete with Japan and the European Community," said U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor. "NAFTA brings us a step closer to President Clinton's goal of creating a high-wage, high-growth economy."

Kantor said Clinton plans to submit the pact to Congress for approval early this fall. The president announced last year he would not submit the pact, negotiated under former President Bush, until side agreements designed to protect labor and environmental standards were reached.

However, House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said the side deals "fall short in important respects." His Senate counterpart, George Mitchell, D-Maine, said "more work" is needed to make NAFTA acceptable.

The pact would effectively merge the economies of the United States, Mexico and Canada over 15 years by phasing out most barriers to trade and investment. That would create the world's largest single marketplace, with 370 million consumers and workers producing $6.5 trillion worth of goods and services each year.

The supplemental agreements announced Friday call for:

Tri-national commissions to mediate disputes over labor and environmental violations. If the commissions deadlock, the matter would be passed on to independent arbitrators who could impose sanctions on "persistent" offenders.

Some as-yet undefined institution to oversee improvements to the environment and physical facilities, such as roads and sewers, along the U.S.-Mexico border. No agreement was reached on how to pay for such improvements, or how to identify and prioritize them.

An "early-warning system" permitting consultations and negotiations in cases in which individual industries in either country could show that they were being unduly damaged by surges in the import of specific goods or services in the wake of NAFTA approval.

Labor and environmental groups said enforcement provisions are much too vague.

by CNB