----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Perelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 9:30 PM Subject: [PEN-L:25836] fast track
> The Dems. got a little, then caved. Sad. > -- ===================== 5-10-02 Trade Bill Faces Senate Challenge By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators intent on preserving trade-retaliation laws present a fresh obstacle to giving President Bush the broad new negotiating authority he wants. Their effort to maintain congressional control over antidumping and other laws triggering import tariffs follows the resolution of what had been the biggest hurdle to a Senate trade bill - providing health care subsidies for the first time to workers whose jobs move overseas. Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Mark Dayton, D-Minn., now want to amend the bill to allow lawmakers to remove provisions from negotiated trade agreements that weaken U.S. trade remedy laws. Both sides say the vote on the amendment, expected early next week, is too close to call. Craig, a conservative member of the Senate GOP leadership, said the White House called to urge him to withdraw the amendment. He said he refused. Supporters of legislation giving the president fast track negotiating authority are so concerned they held a news conference Thursday, attended by Commerce Secretary Don Evans and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, to warn that the amendment puts the entire bill at risk. "If you want to kill the bill, this is how to do it," Zoellick said. Fast track, or trade promotion authority, gives the president the power to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can approve or reject but cannot amend. President Bush says this authority, denied the White House since 1994, is crucial as the World Trade Organization enters a new round of talks aimed at breaking down trade barriers. Proponents overcame a major hurdle Friday when Senate negotiators and the administration reached a compromise on health care and other benefits for trade-dislocated workers that Democrats have insisted must be part of the package. President Bush, at a fund-raiser in Columbus, Ohio, said he was pleased with the Senate agreement. "This nation ought to be confident," he said. "We ought to be opening up markets all around the world to trade." But still looming before the bill gets to Bush's desk are the Craig-Dayton amendment and other efforts to change the measure, as well as tough negotiations with the House, which passed a different version of the legislation. Craig, who supports free trade, said his measure, which has 13 Republican and 13 Democratic sponsors, will strengthen the president's negotiating hand. It would "send a clear message to our trading partners that Congress stands behind the administration in defending U.S. trade law at the negotiating table." Only Congress has the authority to pass trade remedy laws, "and Congress should retain the unfettered authority to change them," said Dayton. Trade remedy laws are aimed at protecting American industries from practices in which foreign competitors subsidized by their governments dump their lower-priced goods in the American market. Craig said these laws have been important in shielding his state of Idaho from the dumping of Korean microchips or Canadian softwood lumber and "must not be negotiated away." Under their amendment, a lawmaker could raise a point of order against a provision in a trade agreement that weakens a trade remedy law. If that point of order is sustained, the provision would be stricken from the rest of the bill. Craig and Dayton point to a letter to the president last year that was signed by 62 senators. It said the United States "should no longer use its trade laws as bargaining chips in trade negotiations." But Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chief authors of the fast track package, said it already requires the president to preserve the nation's ability to rigorously enforce its trade laws and to notify Congress of any proposed changes to trade laws. If the amendment becomes law, Grassley said, it "would have an immediate and very damaging effect on the ability of U.S. negotiators to do what we pay them to do: go out and get good trade agreements." He said the Bush administration, in moving to raise tariffs on Canadian lumber and foreign steel, has shown its resolve in preserving trade remedy laws.
