Viewpoints : RESHAPING TRADE POLICY : We should view competition as a national security issue and build an aggressive economic strike force.

As we enter a new era of world economic competition, America’s national security must be viewed not only by our defense capabilities, but also in terms of our economic prowess. The stark reality we face is that strength is measured in megabytes as well as megatons. And American strength seems to be diminished.

A recent Times Mirror poll indicated that a huge proportion of the American people “see Japan, not the U.S., as the world’s leading economic power. . . . People see our ability to compete in the world as declining during the Reagan years.” Indeed, Japan apparently has surpassed us in overall wealth.

For the first time in three decades, we have begun to run a deficit in trade in services. Our current account deficit continues to build. Our debt to foreign nations grows at the rate of half a billion dollars a day.

These problems are alarming not only as a signal of reduced American economic strength, but also for the threat that they pose to economic opportunity for all nations. At a time when the Polish people are crying out for help to foster democracy and economic freedom, we find that we simply don’t have all the resources to lend a helping hand.

To date, much of the effort to regain our competitiveness has focused on ways to reduce foreign barriers to our exports. These proposals form a vital part of our trade agenda. They assure workers, farmers and businesses that if they take the tough steps needed to restore America’s economic vitality, our government will act to open foreign markets to their products.

But even if these and other tools at the disposal of the Administration are used aggressively, we know that they are only part of the story. As foreign barriers are removed and a “level playing field” is created, American businesses must be prepared to take full advantage of the opportunities.

This month we joined Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) and U.S. Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) in announcing a bill to change U.S. trade and economic policy--not the final step, but an important one in the right direction.

Our bill would place our top economic Cabinet officers on the National Security Council, ensuring that economic security has an equal voice when diplomats and generals discuss national security with the President.

This change is vital to our future economic prosperity. Earlier this year, Congress and the Administration went head to head over the FSX fighter aircraft deal. It was only after the secretary of Commerce was invited into the discussions at the White House that our economic security concerns were raised. Although the changes in the deal proposed by the President don’t go far enough, without the secretary at the table, we might have seen a greater giveaway of American technology and jobs.

We need the secretaries of Commerce and Treasury as well as the U.S. trade representative involved in all discussions concerning our national security. Our strategic and economic interests are inextricably intertwined.

Our bill would restructure trade-related federal agencies and would reform the Commerce Department into a new, streamlined Department of Industry and Technology, beefing up the Foreign Commercial Service and creating an export strike force.

In trade promotion, America is losing ground. In the Osaka/Kansai region in Japan--an area with a gross national product twice that of South Korea’s--the French have eight commercial officers. We have only two. Canada has 112 commercial officers in the U.S. In Canada, we have 15. It’s a tribute to those hard-working Foreign Commercial Service officers that we’re doing as well as we are.

Also, we are creating an Advanced Civilian Technology Agency--a new way to promote the public-private partnership that we need to compete on the cutting edge of technologies such as biogenetics, fusion and advanced robotics. We need to get more technologies into the world marketplace to compete against those of other countries. We need to change our priorities to put more of our research dollars into technologies that will result in commercial benefits, rather than simply another weapons system.

In 1980, we spent 47% of our federal research dollars on defense. Today, that percentage is 68%. Our bill would change our priorities and enhance our ability to get new technology from the lab to the marketplace.

We also need to boost our savings rate, expand investment in research and development, improve education, return a long-term perspective and a sense of responsibility to corporate America, and much more. And we need to do all of these things now. That’s not simple--but it’s not impossible either. It is necessary to make America strong enough to meet the challenges and responsibilities of world leadership.

Our parents were able to defeat the Depression at home and dictatorships abroad at the same time, even though the America of the 1930s and 1940s was less strong and dominant than the America of today. While the fight is less dramatic now, the stakes are as high. We must rise to meet the demands of a changing world to give future generations the jobs, hope and opportunity they deserve.

We hope that Congress, as well as the President, also sees the nature of the challenges that we face, and joins us as we rise to meet them. For a great nation that is not the agent of change is sure to be its victim.