Associated Press
November 17, 2001
By Martin Crutsinger
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, buoyed with a big trade victory where President Clinton suffered a major failure, hopes to score an even bigger legislative triumph in an upcoming showdown vote in the House.
Republican leaders, after delaying for months, on Friday set Dec. 6 for a House vote on the legislation that Bush will need to pursue his ambitious trade agenda.
That agenda includes two holdovers from the Clinton administration -- creation of the world's largest free trade zone in the Western Hemisphere and successful completion of a new round of trade liberalization talks under the auspices of the World Trade Organization.
The administration got good news this week on the WTO negotiations when 142 countries reached a deal in Arab emirate of Qatar to launch the new round of talks.
That success stood in marked contrast to the failure the Clinton team suffered in December 1999 when a WTO effort to launch the new round collapsed in a haze of tear gas as delegates could not resolve their differences and thousands of anti-globalization protesters turned Seattle into a riot zone.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick told reporters Friday night he believed the success in Doha, Qatar, would help gain the votes Bush needs for negotiating authority to complete an agreement and send it to Congress for an expedited up-or-down vote without amendments.
Zoellick said the Qatar agreement offered promising opportunities for American manufacturers, farmers and service companies to tear down global barriers and boost exports. The negotiations are supposed to be completed by Jan. 1, 2005.
"The negotiating mandates in agriculture, manufacturing and services are all extremely good," Zoellick said. Lawmakers now will have something concrete to see when deciding how to vote on the trade-negotiating legislation, formerly called fast track but renamed trade promotion authority.
However, to strike a deal in Qatar, Zoellick did something the Clinton administration had refused to do in Seattle: agree to negotiate in the new round over changes in WTO rules that cover anti-dumping laws -- the sale of goods in a foreign market at unfairly low prices.
The American steel industry has been a frequent user of the U.S. anti-dumping law to protect its market from a flood of cheaper imports, and industry supporters in Congress are not happy.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., complained in a speech on the Senate floor this week that Zoellick had exceeded his negotiating mandate in the Doha talks.
"The Constitution assigns the responsibility for international trade to the Congress," Baucus said. "Yet the administration is now acting without a mandate from Congress."
But administration officials said the United States had 140 countries insisting that anti-dumping rules be on the negotiating table and it faced a Seattle-style defeat if it refused to at least allow the rules to be discussed.
Opponents also said the administration-backed bill, sponsored by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., fails to adequately address their concerns over labor and environmental standards.
Thomas, with the support of a handful of pro-trade Democrats, included language to make labor and environmental issues an objective for trade talks. But Democratic opponents say the measure does not go far enough in providing assurances that any new agreements will not come at the expense of worker rights and the environment.
Asked if the administration might accept amendments to the Thomas bill, Zoellick said, "We are always looking and talking with people to see what we can do to secure enough votes."
Opponents of fast track contend the administration is at least 40 votes short of passing the measure in the 435-member House.
But Zoellick said he believed supporters, including many major U.S. corporations, will be able to succeed with an intensive lobbying campaign in short time between now and Dec. 6.
He said getting a date represented a victory for the administration because it will force undecided lawmakers to declare where they stand.
"You need a date. This is not an easy vote for people," Zoellick said. "I believe we will pick up more Democrats and Republicans. With a president at 90 percent popularity, that will help push it over."