CONGRESS MUST VOTE TO CONFIRM NAFTA

Twenty years ago this past summer, my older brother, a newly minted graduate of Rice University, headed for the Republic of South Korea to begin two years as a Peace Corps medical worker. For centuries, South Korea had been a poor country of the kind that found itself on the receiving end of missions of mercy and assistance such as our Peace Corps.

The generation since has seen a remarkable transformation. Once a bleak Third World backwater, South Korea is a Peace Corps destination no longer. Its economy roaring ahead, today's South Korea is one of the much-envied "Tigers of the Pacific" (along with Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand), a category defining the world's fastest growing economies. Incidentally, the Tigers' robust economic health is proving contagious: Mainland China is rapidly joining them, with astonishing, double-digit growth rates in a backward land of 1.2 billion souls who like Mexicans need all manner of consumer and capital goods.

But back to Korea. How did the permanent miracle of self-sustaining economic takeoff first begin, and then gather irresistible momentum? What was crucial? How did a Third World backwater become a roaring magnet for investment, a surging new Land of Opportunity?

Many factors combined to produce the South Korean economic miracle. There's the native industry and tenacious work habits of the Koreans; their strong nuclear families; their generally free economic system; their sense of pride and determination to acquire such educational attainments as are preconditions to economic success; and the protection of the American defense (including nuclear) umbrella.

Indispensable to it all was trade. Had there not been a free and open world trading system, none of this economic miracle could have occurred. Fostering and guaranteeing that world trading system has long been a responsibility that American leaders of both parties took seriously. Despite all that you hear, open trading is what the NAFTA debate is all about.

What, then, shall we make of H. Ross Perot? The time has arrived to confront Perot as the ill-informed, misleading, crabbed, kooky, testy and mean-spirited little naysayer that he manifestly has shown himself to be.

When Al Gore confronted Perot with evidence of his son's (and possibly his own) interest in $30 million, 17,000-acre, taxpayer-funded Alliance Airport in Texas, it was all over but the empty and cliche-ridden one-liners. You must admit, the question resonates: Mr. Perot, if it is good for your son to operate in a free-trade, duty- and custom-free international port of entry, then why is it not good for Everyman's and Everywoman's son and daughter to enjoy the same privileges, to reap the same benefits?

For nearly 50 years since the end of World War II, a bipartisan consensus of American leaders liberals, moderates and conservatives has held: a) that free and open markets promote rising living standards the world over; and b) that American leadership is indispensable in promoting and guaranteeing freer and more open world markets.

Every so often, in the lives of political figures, there comes along a defining test. There are tests of intelligence and of character, of farsightedness and courage and simple economic literacy. For all members of Congress, the vote on NAFTA is such a test. To their everlasting credit, at a defining moment in American history, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have passed that test. So have Senators Jack Danforth and Kit Bond, along with Congressman Bill Emerson, most Republican congressmen and Senators, and a minority of Democratic members of Congress.

Those who have flunked this test include a certain bone-headed billionaire, such out-and-out protectionists as Democratic leaders Richard Gephardt and David Bonior, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Big Labor, and sadly, columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, an increasingly brazen protectionist last spotted driving to a TV appearance in his Mercedes-Benz.

Herewith, a prediction. None of the opponents will ever be elected President or Vice President of the United States of America.

One of my favorite stories concerns the two English shoe salesmen who traveled to colonial India early in this century. Upon arrival, the first salesman cabled home: "Effort futile; no one here wears shoes. Booking passage for immediate return."

The other salesman cabled his company a sharply differing assessment of the same situation: "A land of uncounted millions where almost no one owns shoes. Have sold out of first batch in one day. Ship immediately. What vast opportunity! Can sell as many as you can send!"

The history of rising living standards has been with the optimistic not the naysaying view of the world's economic life. We must stand with those who have passed a crucial test of vision and optimism and, yes, courage. NAFTA must be confirmed.