With respect to NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), President Clinton brought closure to great initiatives by Republican predecessors. The shoe is on the other foot for AFTA (the proposed Americas Free Trade Agreement).
Mr. Clinton has led 22 presidents and 12 prime ministers in endorsing the concept of free trade from Baffin Island to Tierra del Fuego and setting a realistically challenging date of 2005 for final agreement on terms. But his successors must keep this ball rolling or it will halt. Free trade in the Western Hemisphere is a great bipartisan vision, or an idle dream.
The Summit of the Americas in Miami produced the right result. But so did its predecessor, the Uruguay summit of 1967, when Lyndon B. Johnson was the U.S. president. That one called for a hemispheric common market by 1985, which came to nothing. No American summit was held for another 27 years.
The summit was a good show for Mr. Clinton because it crystallized enthusiasm for free trade, which represents liberation for small countries that have kept their peoples poor and unproductive behind trade barriers. The best indication of good faith was the agreement of Canada, the United States and Mexico to invite Chile to join NAFTA. That negotiation may take two years, but there is every reason for it to succeed.
The invitation was reward for Chile's move to democracy and a market economy, for which rising prosperity was already the reward. This should induce other republics to see the virtues of both. AFTA can be achieved by a great new multilateral negotiation or by every republic joining NAFTA. Two routes to the same destination.
The summit in Miami, though, was not an unqualified success. The United States did not get as tough an anti-narcotics stand as it sought. Several delegations did not get satisfaction on their objections to California's Proposition 187, which would withhold public services from illegal aliens who pay taxes for them.
But some progress was made against drug money laundering, and agreement was reached to phase out leaded gasoline. Cuba and Fidel Castro were truly isolated for lack of progress toward democracy. All in all, there were several steps at the Miami summit in the right direction.