By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress gave final approval on Thursday to legislation extending billions of dollars in trade benefits to the nations of Africa, the Caribbean and Central America, handing President Clinton a rare trade-policy victory.
The Senate approved by the bill by a vote of 77-to-19, sending it to the president for his signature. It was the first major trade bill to be approved by Congress since lawmakers authorized U.S. participation in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994.
The legislation, approved by the House of Representatives last week, would grant more than 70 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Central America greater duty-free access to the U.S. market.
White House officials said the bill will boost apparel trade by billions of dollars and help the world's poorest nations reform their economies.
The legislation will also require U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky to rotate retaliation against countries that refuse to comply with WTO rulings. That measure is aimed at keeping pressure on the European Union, which has lost WTO cases involving beef and bananas.
Opponents said it shortchanged African and Central American states by setting caps on textile imports. Others said it provided countries too much access to the U.S. market, putting American textile workers in peril.
"As cheap imports continue to flood the domestic market, job losses will not only continue, but increase," said Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican.
Supporters said the benefits were clear. Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez said the legislation would help a region hit hard by hurricanes in 1998 that killed more than 11,000 people.
For El Salvador alone the bill could create 100,000 new apparel industry jobs over the next three to four years and triple textile exports to between $3.5 billion and $4 billion, according to Ambassador Rene Leon.
Boost For Clinton
Final passage gave a much-needed boost to Clinton's trade-policy agenda, which suffered a devastating blow in 1999 when WTO talks collapsed in Seattle.
Passage also cleared the way for Congress to turn its focus to a landmark trade agreement with China. Some lawmakers had threatened to oppose the China bill if Congress failed to help Africa and the Caribbean.
Under terms of the final agreement, the United States will extend duty-free, quota-free benefits to apparel made in Africa from U.S.-produced yarn and fabric. Apparel made in Africa from African fabric would receive the benefits up to a cap.
The poorest countries in Africa would receive all of the trade benefits, with no restrictions on the source of fabric for four years. For Mauritius and Kenya, the bill would remove existing U.S. quotas on textile and apparel imports.
A Clinton administration official said the bill could boost shipments of African-made apparel to the United States to $4.2 billion by 2008, up from the current $250 million.
Under the compromise the United States would also provide duty-free, quota-free benefits to apparel made in the Caribbean and Central America from U.S. yarn and fabric. But the benefits would be capped for apparel made from regional fabric.
In addition the final bill included provisions that would deny duty-free benefits to companies that ship apparel to Africa or the Caribbean from other regions in order to reship them to the United States.
It establishes a permanent agricultural ambassador in the office of the trade representative, and extends normal trade relations to Albania and Kyrgyzstan to ensure that American companies benefit from their entry to the Geneva-based WTO.
The bill also demands that African nations eliminate the "worst forms of child labor" in exchange for the trade benefits, and urges the U.S. government and American businesses to take a more active role in eradicating AIDS in Africa.
A more far-reaching AIDS provision was dropped by congressional negotiators, upsetting many Democrats.
In response, Clinton issued an executive order on Wednesday promising that U.S. officials would not stand in the way of countries seeking to obtain less costly AIDS medication for their poorest citizens as long as the measures complied with international trade rules.:
