Free Trade Zones

The United States concluded a free-trade agreement with four Central American countries Wednesday, boosting the Bush administration's trade agenda but setting the stage for a bruising ratification battle in Congress. Although commercially modest, the Central American Free Trade Agreement with El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua looms large in symbolic terms.

Retreating from a central pillar of Bill Clinton's economic strategy, almost all of the leading Democratic presidential candidates are expressing growing skepticism about free trade. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Sens. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina have moved away from past positions and joined Rep. Richard A.

Ministers from Mexico and five Central American countries Thursday signed an agreement to work toward establishing a regional free trade zone by 1997. "With the signing of this treaty, the rules are defined for bilateral negotiations between (Mexico) and the five Central American nations for a free trade agreement," said Mexican Trade Minister Jaime Serra Puche. The accord is expected to lead to Mexican treaties on free trade with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

While officials from the United States, Mexico and Canada celebrated the completion of a draft North American Free Trade Agreement among themselves, officials of some of their neighbors in the southern half of the hemisphere Friday expressed apprehensions about the pact.

Stumping for the trade pact that she and teams of negotiators spent a year crafting, U.S. Trade Rep. Carla Anderson Hills said Friday that the recently announced agreement relaxing trade rules with Mexico and Canada will not cost jobs in the United States or harm the environment as opponents contend. In fact, U.S. businesses will benefit the most from the North American Free Trade Agreement because Mexico's trade barriers against U.S. products are more formidable than are U.S.

San Diego could benefit from the North American Free Trade Agreement more than most American cities, but it could also face significant risks, some observers say.

The federal government ruled Thursday that Canadian lumber shipments are injuring American competitors and upheld penalties that could add $270 to the average nationwide price of a new home and more than $500 in the costly Southern California market. The International Trade Commission, the independent agency handling the penalty phase of trade disputes, agreed with the Commerce Department that the softwood lumber shipments have been improperly subsidized by Canada's provincial governments.

States on the U.S.-Mexico border must work together against environmental dangers that are likely to grow as trade increases, governors of the border states said here Friday. At an amiable but uneventful two-day conference, the governors extolled the projected economic benefits of the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement to a region where binational economic integration is becoming a reality.