Party loyalties do not apply: The stakes are high in the battle to guide Nafta through the US Congress
'They'd sell off bits of the White House lawn for a vote if they could' - Jim Jontz, head of the Fair Trade Campaign against Nafta 'It's one president, all the living former presidents, 41 governors, 14 Nobel Laureates and 284 economists versus Perot, Buchanan and Brown; it's your choice' - Mickey Kantor, US trade representative Barring the unforeseen, the latest addition to the matriarchy of all political battles will be finally decided on November 17 when 258 Democrats, 175 Republicans, and one independent in the 435-member House of Representatives (there is one vacant seat) vote on whether to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement linking the US, Mexico and Canada on January 1. A simple majority of 218 is all that is needed. If it passes, the Senate will almost certainly follow suit; if it fails, the upper chamber does not have to act. The stakes are enormous - for the political credibility of President Bill Clinton early in his term and for the legacy of President Carlos Salinas as he nears the end of his, for the evolution of the Mexican and US economies, and for a global trading structure in which a Uruguay Round agreement scheduled to be reached by December 15 may be unattainable if Nafta goes down. Conventional party lines are irrelevant in the intense retail political war now going on in pursuit of the 218-vote nirvana. More Republicans, perhaps as many as 120 according to congressman Jim Kolbe of Arizona, far fewer according to Mr Jim Jontz, a former congressman from Indiana, will vote for than against, not least because the original Nafta was negotiated by the Bush administration. This leaves Mr Clinton needing at most 40 per cent of his own party to triumph - and therein lies the problem. For the Democratic coalition that just - by one vote - sustained the president in the great budget battle against unanimous Republican opposition, is in tatters. In July it was the 'new' Democrats, especially moderates from the south, who deserted Mr Clinton while the old liners - labour, liberals, blacks - held their noses and held fast. On Nafta, the positions are in good measure reversed. According to Ms Lori Wallach, a leading co-ordinator of the 'anti-' campaign, the 'no' camp already numbers 208-210 'including some leaners'. Bill Daley, drafted from his Chicago domain to direct the 'yes' campaign, disputes this estimate, counts about 195 in favour and says that some 55 Democrats are still undecided. Mr Jontz disagrees, reckoning there are now more Republicans than Democrats on the fence. He thinks the freshman class - 66 Democrats and 48 Republicans - is particularly resistant to Nafta. Both sides hail and blast each new convert. Democrat John Dingell of Michigan came out for the 'noes' this week, but Mr Daley counters that he could never understand why anybody thought he would do anything different. Ms Wallach is equally dismissive of the impact of the 'yes' declarations of Democrats Joe Kennedy from Massachusetts and Esteban Torres from California. The latter, she insists, probably could not carry the 18-member Hispanic caucus. The politics of Nafta have produced uneasy dalliances among political heavyweights. In one bed lie the president, the Republican leadership, including Newt Gingrich, a fervent conservative, the Senate majority leader, the Speaker of the House, most leaders of big business, and some prominent environmental groups: in the other can be found the House majority leader (Richard Gephardt) and most of the Democratic House whips, including David Bonior of Michigan, the chief anti-Nafta strategist, plus Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, most of the labour unions, Pat Buchanan, the right-wing ideologue, and Ross Perot, last year's independent presidential candidate. Ms Wallach, who portrays the Nafta divide as one between 'populists and the elites', says there is little top-level contact with Mr Perot, who first spoke of the 'giant sucking sound' of US jobs going south to Mexico, but that his troops offer access to conservatives and small businesses. Mr Daley says that 'Perot's credibility is diminishing because he has become a politician', an assessment borne out by several recent opinion polls. Both sides agree that the role played by President Clinton himself is crucial. 'He is my number one worry - never underestimate the power of the presidency,' says Ms Wallach. He got off to a slow start. In the summer he was consumed by the budget, and more recently distracted by healthcare, Haiti and Somalia. Meanwhile the opposition was off and running early. The administration pinned a lot of its midsummer hopes on Nafta's 'side agreements', covering Mexican environmental and labour laws and guarding against import 'surges', meeting most objections. But these were only completed in mid-August, later than planned, and were only partly successful. Six prominent US environmental groups came out in favour, but union opposition became entrenched. Most important, Congressman Gephardt, whose backing could probably have ensured passage, declared he was not satisfied. Mr Daley insists it does not matter that the president started late because 'in politics, decisions are only taken in the last few days'. Whatever the merits of this argument, there is no questioning that the pro-Nafta campaign is now in full swing, with plans that Mr Clinton himself do little other than argue for the agreement in the next two weeks. Every day brings a new media show. Last week saw Products Day on the White House lawn, a display of 175 goods that would benefit from Nafta. Last weekend the president went to Boston to maintain that JFK would have been pro-Nafta. On Monday he appeared at an electronic 'town meeting' with members of the American Chamber of Commerce. Later this week he is in Louisville, Kentucky. On Sunday an hour-long TV interview is scheduled. About twice a week he has 15-20 congressmen in his office for a Nafta exhortation. He works the phones constantly, and all members of his cabinet are fully engaged, sometimes inventively. Mr Kantor's latest pitch is that Japan is against Nafta and would, along with Europe, seek to profit from its defeat. The Nafta 'war room', operating out of the Old Executive Office building next to the White House, co-ordinates it all and makes sure that businessmen keep up the pressure on individual members. Certain actions, both substantive and personal, get taken with Nafta in view. Last week's creation of the North American Development Bank, with its funds available for border clean-up, obviously helped Congressman Torres come off the fence.
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