May 24, 1999 US-trade-NAFTA 15:35 GMT
SECTION: Financial pages
LENGTH: 432 words
HEADLINE: Commerce secretary faces anti-NAFTA protest as he defends free trade
DATELINE: CHICAGO, May 24
BODY:
US Commerce Secretary William Daley was heckled by anti-NAFTA demonstrators here Monday as he launched he launched an education campaign to trumpet the importance of free trade for America's prosperity.
As he met over breakfast with Midwest business executives and lawmakers at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, two dozens demonstrators staged a noisy protest outside to decry the loss of US jobs to Mexico.
"Bill Daley, what a man, export jobs as fast as you can," chanted activists of the Illinois Fair Trade Campaign, a coalition of union groups opposed to the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) linking the United States with Canada and Mexico since 1994.
The protesters claimed that the accord had cost 200,000 US hobs and triggered a lopsided trade imbalance with Mexico, where workers sometimes earn as little as two dollars a day.
"There are legitimate issues of environment, labor in a host of areas not just trade, that should be looked at independently," Daley said.
"But anyone who is running around saying the last years have been bad for the US since 1993 (when NAFTA was passed by the US Congress) when you look at 18.5 million new jobs having been created, you look at inflation, unemployment, wages of every category, business starts for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans at greater numbers than ever ... I think it's a little unrealistic," he added.
NAFTA created the world's largest trading bloc with more than 360 million people and a combined output of 1.7 trillion dollars. It reduced tariffs and guaranteed the NAFTA nations reciprocal access to each other's markets.
Daley, who is on a 24-hour trade education tour of Chicago as well as Racine and Milwaukee in neighboring Wisconsin, said the US economy was the envy of the rest of the world.
"Many Americans do not understand what is happening with trade and the economy. They do not know trade has generated more jobs than it has cost, or that export-related jobs pay higher wages -- some 15 percent more," he told the business leaders.
"Businesses need to talk trade up more often," he said. "If we can't get the people behind us, especially now during the good times how can we expect Congress to go along with us opening new markets in China? Or on giving the president the power to negotiate trade agreements?"
"We need to build a pro-trade majority in this country. If we don't, I worry the trade deficit will spawn protectionist pressures that would prevent us from opening new markets, whether in China, Latin America, or Europe," he noted.