Candidates' Free-Trade Policy

Regarding the front page article "Perot Puts Spotlight on Free-Trade Issue," July 3: None of the three presidential candidates is properly handling the controversial issue of free-trade negotiations with Mexico and Canada. Aside from neglecting the need for a global free-trade initiative instead of one for North America or this hemisphere alone, all three fail to stress the importance of a domestic-adjustment/full-employment strategy to backstop any form of free-trade undertaking. All three (in varying d egrees) have proposals for strengthening the United States economy including US competitiveness, but none of the candidates coherently relates his domestic-economic strategy to whatever passes for his foreign-economic strategy.

America is unprepared for a real free-trade policy, hemispheric or trans-hemispheric. David J. Steinberg, Alexandria, Va.

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