Friday, 24 May 2002
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/20524nCongress-Trade.html

The Associated Press

By David Espo

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - In a display of bipartisanship, the Senate approved legislation Thursday night that strengthens President Bush's ability to negotiate global trade deals while providing billions in new benefits for American workers hurt by imports.

The 66-30 vote marked a victory for Bush, who has made a trade bill a top priority, and cleared the way for a complex negotiation with the House on a final compromise.

The Senate action "sends an important signal to our trading partners that we are committed to free and open trade," Bush said in a statement released while he was on an overseas trip to Europe and Russia. Enactment of a final House-Senate compromise, he said, "will give me the flexibility I need to secure the greatest possible trade opportunities for American workers, consumers, families and farmers."

In a reprise of three weeks of Senate debate, supporters hailed the measure while detractors attacked it as an extension of a failed trade policy that has decimated key industries such as textiles and steel.

"It's a landmark bill because it not only modernizes our trade policy but it also is balanced with a quite progressive trade adjustment assistance to Americans who are dislocated on account of trade," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

The measure "empowers our nation to get the best bargain we can at the negotiating table," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, adding that it would result in open markets for American agriculture and manufacturing products.

But critics said that was an illusion. "There never has been any such thing as free trade and never will be," said Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., who listed a series of trade barriers erected by foreign nations that he said undermine existing agreements.

The bill represents a compromise between the White House's call for enhanced negotiating power and a demand by Senate Democrats for health care and other benefits for workers who lose their jobs to import competition.

It would give Bush the authority that most chief executives have had for the past quarter-century to negotiate international trade deals subject to a yes-or-no vote in Congress. The last president to wield that power, Bill Clinton, failed to win a renewal from the GOP-controlled Congress when it expired in 1994.

To the distress of the White House, a Senate-passed provision permits lawmakers a separate vote in cases that undermine existing anti-dumping laws. Administration officials have threatened a veto if it is included in the final legislation, and pledged to work for its removal in the final compromise.

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