New York Times | December 5, 2001 | By JOSEPH KAHN
WASHINGTON - As President Bush corners lawmakers on the White House dance floor and on Air Force One to urge them to back his bid for enhanced trade authority, his administration is warning that if Congress rejects the proposal this week "no one will negotiate" with the United States on trade.
The House has scheduled a vote Thursday on whether to grant the president power to reach trade deals that Congress could accept or reject, but not amend, what is known as trade promotion authority.
Bush administration officials and supporters in Congress acknowledge that they are still short of a majority, perhaps by 20 votes, in the Republican-controlled House. But they say they are determined to hold a vote because dozens of lawmakers would prefer not to commit one way or the other on the sensitive issue until they have no choice.
In the Senate, which must also vote on the proposal, there is less resistance.
Republican leaders are eager to show business lobbies that they are doing everything possible to advance trade. Some Republicans say privately that even if the bill fails they could gain a fund-raising edge by painting Democrats as anti-trade, a label Democrats worked hard to erase in President Bill Clinton's terms.
Administration officials are also bluntly warning that the world will cut the United States out of international trade accords unless Congress cooperates.
"Without this authority, our ability to shape the negotiating agenda will be undermined," Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick said while visiting Capitol Hill today. "If we do not get it, no one will negotiate with us."
While President Bush has spent far less time lobbying for new trade powers than President Clinton devoted to passing a big China trade bill last year, Mr. Bush has begun to pressure lawmakers personally, especially wavering Republicans, as the vote nears. He talked trade with Congressional guests at a White House Christmas dance Monday night and invited House members to join him today on a trip to Floridaon Air Force One, where, as one lawmaker put it, he engaged in some "first-class arm twisting at 37,000 feet."
The administration is focusing mainly on Republican lawmakers from states that have strong citrus, textile and steel industries. Many of those lawmakers say they would like to support the president on an important matter, but have trouble defying companies and workers at home who fear that imports have hurt their livelihoods.
One target was Mark Foley, a Florida Republican who says he has not decided whether to support trade authority. He argues that past trade deals have damaged Florida's $9 billion citrus industry and that the president would have to agree to protect citrus in any new trade accord with Latin America.
"I told the president that we are not going to support anything that leaves us bare on citrus," Mr. Foley said. "I can't say he said enough to get my vote. But there's 48 hours to go."
If the bill passes, it is likely to have minimal Democratic support. But Republican leaders are engaging in some furious horse-trading with a handful of generally pro-trade Democrats, administration officials and Republican aides said.
Bill Thomas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and the main sponsor of fast-track, may support increased aid for workers displaced by trade deals, aides said. House leaders are also weighing whether to offer increased unemployment and health insurance benefits in exchange for Democratic support on the trade bill.
Trade agreements often sail through the Senate. But many Democrat and some Republican House members, who react more to individual constituents who feel imports cost them jobs, have grown increasingly wary of efforts to bring down tariffs and reduce trade barriers.
Individual trade accords, like the one that paved the way for China to join the World Trade Organization, have tended to pass narrowly, often because they are presented as strategic necessities. But the House rejected enhanced trade authority for President Clinton twice in his second term. Labor and environmental groups have mobilized effectively to portray fast-track as an abdication of Congressional powers for a benefit that is, at best, years away.
Mr. Zoellick argues that the stakes are high. He helped forge an international framework for free trade in agriculture, services and manufactured products at the World Trade Organization meeting in Doha, Qatar, last month. He said that those talks could be stillborn unless America's trading partners believed that Congress would back any accord that the administration reached. He said the same about continuing negotiations to create a giant free trade zone from Canada to Chile, known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
While failure to get the powers would be viewed as a significant setback for the administration's trade agenda, rejecting them also carries risk for Democrats.
Moderate Democrats stress that they are not beholden to a trade union agenda and that they want to increase global commerce, a position they argue is vital if they are to maintain financial support from business groups.
As a result, they say, they are opposed to giving President Bush trade authority only because the House bill does not give Congress enough of an continuing oversight role and does too little to address inequities in labor and environmental rules that they say can lead to unfair trade.
"We are far apart because while we agree on the goals we cannot agree on how to implement those goals," said Charles Rangel of New York, the ranking Democrat on Ways and Means. "The trade lobbyists do not oppose what the Democrats are suggesting on trade but the Republican leadership is not listening to us."
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