Bush to lose trade authority
WASHINGTON - President Bush today will lose his power to seal "fast-track" trade agreements without intervention from Congress, where Democrats blame recent deals for sending U.S. jobs abroad.
WASHINGTON - President Bush today will lose his power to seal "fast-track" trade agreements without intervention from Congress, where Democrats blame recent deals for sending U.S. jobs abroad.
Since 1975, only one other president, Bill Clinton, has been stripped of that trade-promotion authority, which is designed to speed the reduction of trade barriers and open new markets with other countries.
House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, whose Ways and Means Committee handles trade policy, said in a written statement yesterday that their legislative priorities "do not include the renewal of fast-track authority."
"Before that debate can even begin, we must expand the benefits of globalization to all Americans," they said.
In the Senate, Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus, (D., Mont.) said yesterday that he had other pressing trade issues, such as extending relief to American workers hurt by foreign trade.
Rather than promoting new free-trade accords, the government should concentrate on rewriting old deals, going after countries such as China that manipulate their currencies, strengthening product safety, and pushing anti-sweatshop legislation, said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio).
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Congress yesterday to renew Bush's trade-promotion authority. Without it, she said, "America will lose an important diplomatic tool."
Democrats say they support expanded trade if it is fair to American workers and does not exploit developing countries. They complain that Bush pushed too many trade deals at the expense of worker rights and environmental protections.
Fast-track authority, which dates back to the Ford administration in 1975, gives the president the right to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can accept or reject, but cannot amend.
Every president since then has enjoyed it, although the law lapsed between 1994 and 2002, when Democrats suspicious of trade agreements joined with Republicans hostile to the Clinton administration in opposing its renewal.
The law was revived in 2002 when Republicans agreed to Democratic demands to expand a program assisting U.S. workers hurt by foreign trade.
