Yes to the Fast Track; Rejection would be a disaster.
Within a few weeks Congress will face a seminal decision: whether to approve the so-called fast-track legislation enabling the administration to negotiate for a free trade agreement with Mexico. We strongly urge Congress to grant this authority. In our opinion, such an agreement would be the most constructive measure the United States would have undertaken in our hemisphere in this century.</br></br>The agreement is part of the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative, which looks ahead to a community of neighbors united by free trade and strengthened by expanded investment flows, environmental protection and a reduced official debt burden.</br></br>The proposal is well timed. The nations of Latin America are moving forward in rare harmony and through remarkably free and democratic processes to open their economies, stamp out inflation and expand economic output. The Enterprise Initiative is the right response by the United States to such dramatic progress in Latin America.</br></br>A free trade agreement with Mexico would contribute to a closer and more cooperative relationship with our neighbor to the south, whose population is approaching 100 million and with whom we share a border of some 2,000 miles. The destinies of our two countries are being increasingly linked, and the free trade agreement would accelerate the trend.</br></br>Mexico is already becoming a major market for U.S. goods and services. It is our third largest trading partner - behind only Canada and Japan. In 1990 U.S. exports to Mexico approached $27 billion, while exports to all of Latin America were larger than those to Japan. This growth in U.S. exports to Mexico is largely the result of the dramatic reduction of Mexican import barriers and to the dynamic leadership of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, under whose administration Mexico has turned increasingly toward market economies. The free trade agreement would only accelerate these opportunities.