Geneva 18 Nov (TWN) -- President Clinton's last minute deals to win NAFTA votes have been at the expense of US commitments on the Montreal protocol on the Ozone layer, according to the Minnesota-based Institute for Agricultural Trade Policy.

Clinton and his vice-President Al Gore, in last year's Presidential elections and since then, have been presenting themselves as environmentalists.

An IATP press release received here said that one day before the NAFTA vote in the US Congress, the Clinton administration offered tomato growers a deal on methyl bromide, a highly toxic fumigant, that violates the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the U.S. Clean Air Act.

The deal was expected to gain up to nine additional votes for passage of the pact, IATP said, adding that according to the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, the Clinton administration agreed, "There will not be any restriction on the manufacture or use of methyl bromide until the year 2000."

But under the Montreal Protocol, the US had committed itself, at the Copenhagen meeting of the parties in November 1992, to a freeze on methyl bromide production at 1991 levels and a total phase-out by the year 2000. And earlier this year, the U.S. EPA had proposed freezing methyl bromide production and consumption at 1991 levels beginning January 1, 1994 to implement the Federal Clean Air Act.

The IATP, one of the several US NGOs who campaigned against NAFTA, also said that with the goal of convincing selected Congressional representatives to switch their votes at the last minute, the Clinton administration also made a dozen other deals this week.

These include pledges to prolong the phase-out of the Multi-Fibre Agreement on textiles; to limit sugar, citrus, peanut butter and Canadian wheat imports; to provide federal funding for new C-16 military transport planes despite evidence that they are mechanically unfit for flight; and promises that the Democratic President will help even Republican incumbents in their campaign in the next elections.

As recently as three days ago, a majority of the Congress was opposed to NAFTA in response to grass-roots pressure from family farmers, consumers, environmentalists, and organized labor.

The implications of President Clinton's last minute deal-making will be far-reaching. Many of the deals contradict previous US commitments in the GATT, the Dunkel Draft and the Blair House agreement on agriculture, making it nearly impossible for the US to seriously negotiate any further in the Uruguay Round.

Some analysts believe that the Clinton administration has already decided that a GATT deal is not possible; contradictory promises could be made if existing commitments would never come into force.