You hafta go for NAFTA, speaker says

The North American Free Trade Agreement will most likely pass today's House of Representatives vote with major repercussions world-wide, former House Ways and Means committee member Hal Daub said last night. "It's a slam dunk – it will pass no sweat tomorrow," he said. Daub, who is currently National Director of Federal Government affairs for the accounting firm Deloitte and Touche, spoke to over 100 students in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall last night. According to Daub, NAFTA was conceived out of fear of the economic potential of the European Economic Community, and was inspired by the success of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement signed in 1988. As both Mexico and Canada have already adopted NAFTA, Daub said, it is up to the U.S. to make NAFTA a reality. "This vote is the turning point for the way in which the world is going to evaluate whether we mean business or not," Daub said. Daub predicted that the world will separate into three trading blocks: Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Asia. He added the world's trading problems could be more easily resolved between these three trading blocks than between individual nations looking after their own interests. Daub explained that the U.S. "can gain the quickest and easiest" in the Western Hemisphere. He pointed out that per capita, Mexico consumes more American goods than any other country in the world, making Mexico a logical choice for free trade. Daub said that, contrary to oppositional criticism, NAFTA will secure jobs Americans already have, and will in fact provide the opportunity to create more jobs. "For every one billion dollars of exports, we add 20,000 new jobs in this country," he said. Daub said that another reason to support NAFTA is the positive effect it will have on foreign policy, bringing two of America's closest trading partners even closer. "If we're not going to take advantage of the opportunity to compete, somebody else will," Daub said, citing competiton as an argument for the House to adopt NAFTA. During the question-and-answer session following his lecture, Daub said that NAFTA is a stepping stone towards realizing the goals of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which is a global approach to a common set of trading standards. "[NAFTA] enhances our opportunity to achieve the very important GATT agreement," Daub said Wharton and Engineering junior Vasan Kesevan, an organizer of the event, said he was pleased that the opening lecture of the Deloitte and Touche lecture series had been so relevant to current events. "We tried to secure the most timely presentation, and we were able to secure Hal Daub 24 hours before the house vote," he said.