Trade Agreement

If Congress and legislative bodies in Mexico and Canada approve it, the North American Free Trade Agreement is expected to have a wide-ranging impact on Americans. Here are answers to some questions about how the pact is likely to affect American workers, consumers and investors. Q: How would consumers be affected? A: The most immediate impact would be on manufacturing tariffs. Negotiators agreed to reduce customs duties on thousands of items, resulting in lower costs for imported goods.

The Canadians are about to hold an election. Listening to the rhetoric, you'd think the United States was poised to annex the place. Somehow the Americans are going to dismantle Canada's health and welfare system, obliterate its culture and steal much of its oil and gas reserves. None of this will happen. Many Americans don't know there's an election Monday. Superficially, the central issue is the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. But what the election is really about is economic nationalism.

The new trade agreement that President Clinton hailed Wednesday as a "major breakthrough" opens the way for progress on an issue considered critical for the world's economic future. But it also is carefully limited in scope and must clear several more hurdles before it takes effect. The agreement, under which the world's leading industrialized countries pledged to cut tariffs and grant greater access to their markets, covers a range of manufactured goods.

The House overwhelmingly approved a far-reaching trade pact with Canada on Tuesday that will phase out all tariffs between the two nations and create what its supporters call the world's largest free-trade zone. House leaders and U.S. trade negotiators predicted that the pact, if put into effect as scheduled over 10 years, will increase the U.S.

After a marathon 33-hour session, U.S. and Japanese negotiators reached agreement Friday morning on a new semiconductor trade pact, replacing a decade-old agreement established to boost foreign access to Japan's chip market with a far more modest set of private and government arrangements.

Peasant farmers in the Andean nations of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru often have a choice of growing two crops: flowers for export to the United States or coca for cocaine production. In accordance with U.S. anti-drug policy, Colombia and Peru have stepped up enforcement on coca cultivation, if to little avail. Bolivia doesn't even try: President Evo Morales, who is head of the largest coca growers union, defends it as part of Bolivia's cultural patrimony. But in Ecuador, roses have kept coca at bay. Ecuador's flower industry blossomed after President George H.W. Bush signed a regional trade agreement in 1991, which Congress extended and expanded as the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act of 2002.

U.S. and Mexican negotiators have reached a crucial agreement that will allow U.S. banks, insurance companies and brokerage houses to operate in Mexico, moving the two countries one major step closer economically, a senior Bush Administration official said Monday.

The proposed North American Free Trade Agreement, by breaking down trade barriers among the United States, Canada and Mexico, could boost stock prices of U.S. firms expected to benefit from the accord. But investors should not look for a quick buck, experts say. The agreement, announced Wednesday but facing a ratification battle in Congress next year, is likely to have a subtle effect on U.S. firms the first few years, the pros say.

President Bush, after a brief "refueling-stop summit" with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, said Sunday that he will go "head on head" against organized labor and others who oppose a free-trade agreement with Mexico. "We have some tough opponents," Bush said, singling out "some elements in organized labor" that fear losing jobs to Mexico. "They are wrong," Bush said, "and I'm going to take them on head on head, because I know this is in the best interest of our country."

President Bush will pursue his top trade initiative today as he welcomes six Latin American leaders to the White House, but the trade agreement Bush seeks faces serious trouble in Congress and could be defeated by his fellow Republicans. With showdown votes just weeks away, the Central American Free Trade Agreement still lacks majority support in the Senate and the House, with a near-solid phalanx of Democrats lined up in opposition and key Republicans in open revolt.