Tonight's debate takes place against the background of a national debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement-which President Bush was attempting to shepherd through Congress and candidate Clinton was deciding whether to back-and also over our trade relations with Japan, which both Pat Buchanan and one of tonight's debaters, Jerry Brown, had made an issue in the primaries. Mr. Buckley starts out by citing the fabulous amount of merchandise that came into our country last year, and then says, "Was it to crush us or to conquer us or to starve us? Or was it to nourish and enrich our country? It's a sober fact that every single item, however inconsiderable, in all that vast catalogue of commodities that came to our shores came because some citizen desired it, paid for it, and meant to turn it to his comfort or his profit." He then confesses that "that three-sentence description of free trade was done by Winston Churchill in 1908, and not a syllable of it would I for one wish to alter." Mr. Brown turns the tables on the conservative side by making the argument for subsidiarity and states' rights: "What is happening now is a proposal in the GATT treaty and in the Mexican-Canadian-North American treaty to set up tribunals that meet in secret that will be given the right to overrule state laws and congressional enactments."