Word: pacts
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President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama ended a quick Washington summit today by plugging the upbeat side of current U.S.-Japanese relations: joint support of the North Korean nuclear pact and the mini-breakthrough to allow U.S. apples onto Japanese shelves. The little-mentioned downside: The U.S. trade gap with Japan has grown, Clinton admitted, and "further progress must be made" to open Japan's markets to U.S. autos and auto parts, which account for nearly 60 percent of the deficit...
Loose translation: "See? I was right." Like other NAFTA critics, Perot sees Mexico's turmoil as proof at last of the trade pact's perils. And he sees more proof in the offing: after the peso's plunge, with Mexican labor even cheaper, American jobs will head south en masse. The poorly concealed glee of NAFTA's foes gives the Clinton Administration yet another thing to get defensive about. If NAFTA was a blunder, then doubts arise about the centerpiece of Clintonomics: free trade, as in NAFTA, GATT and plans for Pacific Rim and Pan-American trade zones...
This isn't to say NAFTA caused the crash. In some ways it helped the peso, by attracting investment from the U.S. and elsewhere. But the pact didn't give Mexico the huge peso-protecting cushion that critics envisioned. It's true, as Perot will gladly remind you, that he actually predicted a post-NAFTA peso devaluation. But not this kind of devaluation. In his scenario, a secretly planned devaluation would be triumphantly unveiled -- a wily Latino ploy that by cheapening Mexican goods, would amplify the sucking sound. Reality proved less rife with intrigue than Perot's imagination. Mexico...
Steve Fisher: A) A Fabber Five than the new bunch of recruits he's already got; B) a non-aggression pact with the Ivy League; C) copies of Sun Tzu's "The Art of Coaching" and Clausewitz's "Time-out Strategy...
...Chenery Middle School basketball team did pretty well that year. As the official scoreboard operator and manager, I charted the team's eight wins and two losses. What I remember most about that season is the pact the team made on the bus on a snowy day, coming back from somewhere like Stoneham, probably after a win. We made a pact that someday, somewhere, somehow that our team would win a basketball state championship. We all knew it was possible, but I can remember at the time thinking that none of us would have blinked twice...