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ManyAmericans havewatched their neighbors lose good-

paying jobs as their employers sent their livelihoods to

China. Over the last 20 years, theUnited States has lost

nearly fivemillionmanufacturing jobs. In that same time,

however, the prices that Americans pay for basic goods like

T-shirts and televisions have fallen. Americanswant the

benefits of tradeand they are potentially big and quite

real, including opening up newmarkets to American cars

and softwarebut theyre increasingly anxious about the

downside, which includes closed factories and lowerwages.

The country needs to pursue new trade agreements, but

this timewe need to get the agreements right.

This page has long argued that removing barriers to

trade benefits the economy and consumers, and some of

those gains can be used to help theminority of people who

lose their jobs because of increased imports. But those

gains have not been aswidespread aswe hoped, and they

have not been adequate to assist thosewhowere harmed.

As the Obama administration negotiates two big trade

agreements onewith 11 countries along the Pacific Ocean

and the otherwith the EuropeanUnion it is appropriate

to take stock of what we have learned in the 20 years since

the passage of theNorth American Free Trade Agreement

and use that knowledge to design better agreements.

To gain the support of a divided Congress and public, the

administrationmust ensure that new agreements are

much stronger thanNafta and other pacts.

The Pacific agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific

Partnership, could also encourage China, which is not part

of the talks, to reconsider its currency and labor policies to

avoid being at a disadvantage. (The participants are

Vietnam,Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Canada,Mexico,

Singapore, NewZealand, Chile, Peru andBrunei.) And a

pactwith the EuropeanUnion could harmonize overlapping

regulations to reduce the cost of doing business and

increase competition. Both pacts could aid American foreign

policy by strengthening alliances in Asia andEurope.

Big corporations are playing an active role in shaping

the American position because they are on industry

advisory committees to the United States trade

representative, Michael Froman. By contrast, public

interest groups have seats on only a handful of committees

that negotiators do not consult closely.

That lopsided influence is dangerous, because

companies are using trade agreements to get special

benefits that they would findmuchmore difficult to get

through the standard legislative process. For example,

draft chapters from the Pacific agreement that have been

leaked in recent months reveal that most countries

involved in the talks, except the United States, do not want

the agreement to include enforceable environmental

standards. Business interests in the United States, which

would benefit fromweaker rules by placing their

operations in countries with lower protections, have

aligned themselves with the position of foreign

governments. Another chapter, on intellectual property, is

said to contain language favorable to the pharmaceutical

industry that couldmake it harder for poor people in

countries like Peru to get generic medicines.

Many critics are legitimately concerned about more

outsourcing of jobs, and there is no doubt that trade, along

with automation and financial deregulation, has

contributed to income inequality.

But its important to remember that our trade with

trade-agreement countries, likeMexico, is muchmore

balanced than our trade with China. Those countries buy

more American goods and services than they would

without an agreement, sendingmoney and jobs back in

this direction.

Its easy to point the finger at Nafta and other trade

agreements for job losses, but there is a far bigger culprit:

currencymanipulation. The trade agreements the Obama

administration is negotiating provide a chance for the

United States to press countries to stopmanipulating their

currencies.

The president also needs tomake clear to Americas

trading partners that they need to adhere to enforceable

labor and environmental regulations. This would level the

playing field for American workers and improve the lives

of tens of millions of workers in developing countries.

In recent months the debate about trade, and the Pacific

agreement in particular, has become increasingly

polarized. Mr. Obama andMr. Froman argue that their

critics havemisunderstood ormisrepresented their

intentions. But that is precisely why the president should

provide answers to the questions people have raised about

these agreements.

Enrique KrauzeContributing Writer

MEXICO CITY The invasion had variousobjectives. To help remove a dictatorwho had seized power in a coup dtat,to channel and direct the radical groupsthat opposed him, to safeguard the in-terests of the oil companies active inthe area, to forestall interference fromother national powers, and to teach thecitizens of an unfortunate countryabout the virtues of democracy. Bagh-dad in 2003? No. TheMexican port ofVeracruz, on April 21, 1914.For Europeans and Americans, 1914

marks the beginning ofWorldWar I.ForMexicans, it is synonymous withthe American intervention, a smallerencore of theMexican-AmericanWar of1846-1848 that costMexico half its terri-tory and that in 1879 former PresidentUlysses S. Grant dubbed as Americasmost wicked war.When the expeditionary force (some

6,500Marines and soldiers under thecommand of Vice Admiral Frank F.Fletcher) disembarked on April 21,there were still elderly Veracruzanswho could remember, with horror, thenaval bombardments of February 1847ordered by GeneralWinfield Scott.Bombs had rained down on hospitals,churches, public and private buildings,and had been followed by scenes ofrape, pillage, robbery and killings bythe invaders. Six hundredMexican ci-vilians died. The future commandinggeneral of the Confederacy, CaptainRobert E. Lee, wrote to his wife: Myheart bled for the inhabitants.The 1914 interventionwas less bloody,

its violent period lasting only a couple ofdays. PresidentWoodrowWilsonsstated intentionwas to block a shipmentof arms fromGermany to theMexican

dictator VictorianoHuerta. But the cit-izens of Veracruz did not passively ac-cept the invasion of their city, alreadycaught up in theMexican Revolution.In the United States, there were

voices of opposition as well but alsorapid support. The tabloid press ofWil-liamRandolphHearst, as it had donewith Cuba in 1898, not only rallied be-hind the landing in Veracruz but cam-paigned for invading the entire country.The writer Jack London, who combinedameasure of revolutionary sentimentwith a racist ethic of white supremacy,wrote in Colliers magazine: Verily,the Veracruzans will long remember

this being conqueredby the Americans,and yearn for theblissful day when theAmericans will con-quer them again.They would not mindthus beingconquered to the endof time.In fact, the Verac-

ruzans reacted withrage. The American

military did not have to confront a regu-lar army. (General Huertas federaltroops had been ordered away from thecity.) It was the people of Veracruzmasons, police officers, carpenters,street sweepers, shopkeepers, studentsof the Naval Academy, even prisonerswho resisted. Almost every Verac-ruzan family treasures thememory ofat least one heroic act: the young Ju-dith Oropeza who threw bricks fromher rooftop at the Americans; the pros-titute nicknamed America who sether ammunition belt on a flat roof andfired down at the gringos; the artil-lery lieutenant Jos Azueta who, all byhimself, with an antiquatedmachinegun, covered the retreat of his com-rades at the Naval Academywho had

been battling the Americans. By theend of the fighting, 193Mexicans haddied (including Lieutenant Azueta)along with 19 American soldiers.The American intervention plainly

failed to achieve its objectives. It con-tributed onlymarginally to GeneralHuertas fall a fewmonths later, andhad little influence on the outcome ofMexicos civil war. The expeditionaryforce remained in the city for sevenmonths before leaving it in the hands ofVenustiano Carranzas Constitutional-ist army, a less revolutionary factionthan those headed by the popular cau-dillos Pancho Villa and Emiliano Za-pata.Without any need for protectiveAmericanMarines, the oil wells of thearea, with their copious production, re-mained untouched until the end of thecivil war. The European powers es-pecially England andGermanypulled back fromMexico, though theirwithdrawal from the scene had nothingto dowith the American intervention:WorldWar I had broken out. AndWilson, of course, did not succeed inteaching democracy to theMexicans.What the intervention did achieve

was the renewal of rancor amongMex-icans. Thousands of Veracruzanswentquietly into internal exile, avoiding anycooperationwith the invaders. Only aminority of civic employeeswerewillingtoworkwith the Americans provisionalgovernment. A parallelMexican admin-istration attended to the needs of thepeople. AndMexican nationalism un-derwent a surgewith profound andlong-lasting consequences.The experience of Veracruz sheds

light on the nationalism of other Carib-bean countries, such as the DominicanRepublic, Nicaragua and especiallyCuba. In each of these countries, deepresentment was sparked by the physic-al presence of the invader. In Cuba, theUnited States went to the extreme of

establishing what amounted to a pro-tectorate based on the total identifica-tion of American foreign policy withAmerican private interests. As a result,in 1922, a Cuban journalist predictedthat hatred for the North Americanswill become the religion of Cubans.We are now near the end of this cycle.

Since the invasion of Panama (in 1989) ,AmericanMarines have not comeashore on Latin American beaches. Theidentification of American diplomacywith the interests of its large, privateenterprises is less evident. And the un-derstandably anti-Yankee discourse ofFidel Castro became an artificial rhet-oric for Venezuelas Hugo Chvez andthen a caricature for his successor, Nic-olsMaduro. In themeantime, com-merce andmigration have grown solarge and steady as to file down the oldharsh points of contention.Will an American president be will-

ing to examine this long history of re-sentment and distrust, the better toconstruct a happy ending to theseconflicts with the other America?Concrete actions are required: to passlong-awaited reforms of immigrationlaws, increase commercial relationsand encouragemutual understanding,nourish cultural exchanges, lift theembargo on Cuba, close Guantnamo,and to bemuchmore attentive and re-spectful toward Latin American coun-tries and not treat them as themerebackyard of the nation they call theGiant of the North.And also, at this time of year, a simple

gesture: to remember the dead of April1914 in theMexican port of Veracruz.

ENRIQUE KRAUZE is a historian, the editorof the literary magazine Letras Libresand the author of Redeemers: Ideasand Power in Latin America. This arti-cle was translated by Hank Heifetz fromthe Spanish.

GETTING GLOBAL TRADE RIGHT

New tradeagreementscan be ne-gotiated tobe smarterandstronger.

An evolutionary family drama

The April invasion of Veracruz

Richard Conniff

OLD LYME, CONN. Wewould see amaz-ing things if we could learn to be travel-ers in our own neighborhoods, HenryDavid Thoreau once suggested. Lately,I have come to think that this is moretrue than I had imagined.Mostmornings in warmweather,

when I am home in coastal Connecticut,I head out before dawn to row on a 260-acre dogleg of a lake, backed up behinda rickety old dam. And I see plenty ofwonderful things as I domy laps: Anosprey cruisingwith a freshly caughtfish carried underneath, like a seaplanepontoon. A newly emerged damselflyriding onmy deck for a lap and a half tillits wings harden enough for flight. Andonce, at a distance of 50 feet, a baldeagle scavenging the carcass of a cor-morant. But I did not realize until re-cently that a grand evolutionary experi-ment was taking place beneathmy hull.Alongwith othermembers ofmy row-

ing club, theBlood Street Sculls, I spentmuch of last summermoaning about aproject to rebuild the damwhereRogersLake here spills down to becomeMillBrook, on route to Long Island Soundand the sea. Construction required drop-ping the lake level bymore than two feet,

and that increased the risk for rowers ofscraping the bottomor spilling ignomini-ously on an unexpectedly lowpatch.Now, though, the dam is finished, and

starting this month, alewives, alsoknown as river herring, are climbingthe new fish ladder around the dam sothey can return to Rogers Lake fromtheir feeding grounds at sea. The workis part of a coastwide effort to removeor bypass dams in the hope of restoringthe alewives to their former glory.Alewives are anadromous fish: Born

in freshwater, they spend their lives inthe ocean, returning annually to theirbirthplaces to spawn.Until colonial-eradams cut off theirmigration, hundreds ofthousands of alewiveswould have comepouring intoRogers Lake every springand into other lakes like it alongmuchof theEastern Seaboard. Farmers usedto apply them to their fields as fertilizer,and all along the coast, river herring fes-tivals celebrated their arrival.Whats particularly intriguing about

Rogers Lake, though, is that the firstdambuilt onMill Brook in 1672 inadvert-ently drew a pre-Darwinian dividingline across the species. On one side ofthe dam, the anadromous alewives con-tinued their old seagoing life. But on theother side, in Rogers Lake, othermem-bers of the species became landlocked.Local conservationists have added

fish ladders to the dams lower down on

Mill Brook, and about 10,000 anadrom-ous alewives a year have been recover-ing at least a part of their oldmigration.The new fish laddermeans they can fi-nally complete their journey andcome face to face with their landlockedcousins, after a separation of 342 years.Evolution haswrought strange

changes in the intervening 100 or so gen-erations,most notably in size. The land-locked fish are now just a third the

length of their foot-long seagoing cous-ins. Somewhere be-neath the hull ofmyrowing shell, its as ifmastiffs are returningto discover that theirdistant kinfolk andpotentialmates havebecomeChihuahuas.At his laboratory at

Yale University, theecologist David Postclambered overobstacles in what

would be a walk-in freezer, if it werentso full, and eventually pulled out plasticbags containing frozen landlocked andanadromous alewives. They look likesomething youd get out of a pickledherring jar, because thats basicallywhat they are, he said. Theyre notnearly as sexy as Atlantic salmon, or asfunky as eels. Theyre silvery and non-

descript, and thats both the joy and thecurse of working with these fish.The joy, for an ecologist, is that

alewives are a keystone species. Aspredators, they drive the ecosystem ofevery coastal lake and stream from theCarolinas toMaineor at least the onestowhich they can still gain access. Asprey, alewives, togetherwithmenhaden,Atlantic herring and other forage fish,are the basic food stock for the entire At-lantic fishery, aswell as for seabirds,whales, dolphins and other species.Part of the curse is that even biolo-

gists have a hard time telling alewivesfrom bluebacks, another species of riverherring. At sea, alewives, bluebacksand Atlantic herring all school together,and to fishermen trawling huge nets forthe Atlantic herring, they also look thesame. As a result, an estimated 3.8mil-lion river herring a year are caught un-intentionally as bycatch, and thatmaybe an important reason the overall riverherring population has plummeted bymore than half since the 1960s.Professor Post has been studying

alewives in Connecticut lakes for thepast decade and is now tracking the out-come of the reunion at Rogers Lake. Be-fore the dams cut them off, he said, thealewives arrived each spring as slashand burn predators on the planktoniclife in the lake. They picked off every-thing they could findmostly fly larvaeand feathery little copepods andwaterfleasand then headed back out again,leavingwhatwas left of the plankton torecover for another harvest the follow-ing spring. Its a pretty good lifestyle, ifyoure anadromous, he said. You eateverything in sight and go elsewhere.But once the alewives became land-

locked, they caused an almost completedisappearance of large plankton. Thechange in the prey base forced thealewives not just to become significant-ly smaller but also to developmoreclosely spaced gill rakers, apparentlyso they could strain their minusculefood from the water rather than pickingit off one particle at a time.So what will happen when the two

forms of alewife come together? Sizemay not matter for mating, sincealewives dont practice internal fertiliz-ation. Instead, they broadcast spermand eggs into the water simultaneously.But the anadromous alewives beginbreeding several weeks ahead of theirlandlocked cousins. So the two formsmay just pass one another with aglance, curious but puzzled.Or theremay just be enough overlap

for romance. If so, what happens to theyoung?Will they turn seaward at theend of the summer, as did theiranadromous forebears?Orwill the land-locked lifestyle keep its hold on them?It is an evolutionary family drama,

and it makesme think that Thoreauwas right:With every stroke of myoars, I am skimming across the surfaceof unsuspectedmysteries.?

RICHARD CONNIFF is the author of TheSpecies Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and theMad Pursuit of Life on Earth.ERIC NYQUIST

In 1914, thepeople of thecity, left totheir owndevices, de-fied a U.S.force sent toteach Mexicosome lessons.

Opinion

I went outrowing eachmorning,unaware thata grand evo-lutionaryexperimentwas takingplace beneathmy hull.