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Invasion of the body snatchers
When Pat Buchanan made his unholy alliance with Lenora Fulani, it wasn't the "left" he embraced but a strange, secretive group of disrupters known as the "Newmanites."
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The deal, on the basis of preliminary information, opens up market opportunities for U.S. high-technology and business consulting firms as well as American agriculture on terms that appear slightly improved from those the Clinton administration rejected last spring. With those concessions in hand, the Clinton administration can more easily ask Congress to OK China's entry into the WTO, thereby granting China the equivalent of permanent "most favored nation" (MFN) status.

Most business groups applauded the deal and the prospect of China entering the WTO. Peter Morici, senior fellow at the Economic Strategy Institute, a think tank that promotes the interest of American export firms, argued that the trade deal "should create many more opportunities for Americans than for Chinese," especially in high technology, logistics, software, business and legal consulting, and telecommunications services.

Labor unions, however, denounced the deal in especially harsh terms. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney attacked the Clinton administration as "disgustingly hypocritical" and as making a "grave mistake" in its "fevered rush" for a deal with China. Sweeney's lambasting of the administration comes just weeks after Clinton and Gore lobbied aggressively to secure an early endorsement for Gore's presidential campaign, and could potentially cause headaches for the vice president in getting the union rank and file to mobilize on his behalf.

"At a time when WTO rules protecting workers' and human rights and the environment are yet unwritten, this agreement undermines that possibility and squanders a chance for the WTO to achieve the legitimacy it and other international institutions lack among people around the world," Sweeney said.

"There could be a big trade fight in this country over this, bigger than NAFTA," said Mark Levinson, chief economist for Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). "It's outrageous. It shows the administration doesn't take workers' rights seriously."

Even though Gore, Bradley and Bush all support deregulation of international trade, Gore's direct link with Clinton may cost him votes among union and working-class voters, votes that may be crucial in a competitive Democratic primary.

Even if Gore survives a challenge from former Sen. Bill Bradley, there is a precedent for trade deals negotiated by Clinton translating into Republican victories at the ballot box. In the Republican landslide of 1994 many "blue-collar" voters who would typically have supported Democrats simply stayed home, in part because of disillusionment with Democratic support for NAFTA.

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