| Fast track trade Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020519/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/trading_stakes_2http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020519/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/trading_stakes_2
Much at Stake With Fast Track Bill Sun May 19,12:53 PM ET By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Call it fast track or trade promotion authority. Call it the key to economic prosperity or the tool that will wrench jobs from American workers and send them abroad. Whatever it is called, the trade bill now before the Senate could affect every American.
On the surface, fast track is merely a legislative procedure: It cedes to the president the authority to negotiate trade agreements that Congress still can approve or reject, but cannot change.
The consequences are enormous.
"In order for me to be effective on trade, I need trade promotion authority," President Bush (news - web sites) said. "I need the ability to speak with a single voice for our country."
If Bush does not get his wish, "then no one will negotiate," European Union (news - web sites) Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said after the recent start of World Trade Organization (news - web sites) talks to lower trade barriers. Negotiating partners would be reluctant to sign off on a deal they believe Congress would amend.
Labor and environmental groups says such global trade pacts have hurt America, so there is good reason to oppose the legislation. Fast track, says the AFL-CIO, has led to flawed trade policies that have cost U.S. jobs, depressed wages, worsened work conditions and made it harder to protect the environment.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., an opponent of the Senate bill, questioned a policy that has pitted American producers against overseas competitors "exploiting the labor of a 12-year-old for 12 cents an hour locked in a garage 12 hours a day."
The House passed a version in December by 215-214, with Democrats complained it did not make clear that worker rights and the environment must be priorities in future trade deals.
The Senate bill, which also contains a package of benefits for workers who lose their jobs because of trade, could come to a vote this week.
The trade power, first given to President Ford in 1974, was used in the 1990s for the North American Free Trade Agreement and a global trade agreement that led to creation of the WTO. The authority expired in 1994 and Congress rejected several attempts by the Clinton administration to revive it.
Proponents say that has been a disaster for U.S. trade policy. They frequently point out that there are more than 130 free trade agreements in force in the world, of which the United States is party to three — with Israel, Jordan and the NAFTA countries of Mexico and Canada.
They note that Illinois-based Caterpillar, to sell motor graders in Chile, faces a $15,000 tariff while competitors in Canada, which has a free trade agreement with Chile, export the same product duty-free. Burger Kings in Chile also buy its potatoes for french fries from Canada.
Supporters argue that it is foolish to hinder free trade efforts when 12 million Americans — one out of every 10 workers — depend on exports for their jobs. "Every day that we wait before we give the administration the opportunity to negotiate, jobs go somewhere else," said Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites).
Sen. Max Baucus (news, bio, voting record), D-Mont., a chief sponsor of the Senate bill, said trade agreements in the past decade have meant lower prices for consumers, amounting to a tax cut with annual benefits of between $1,300 and $2,000 for a family of four. He said a successful conclusion to the new WTO talks could bring an American family an additional $2,500 in benefits.
It could also bring about new woes for American workers and companies, say fast track opponents. They blame ill-advised agreements for the transfer of U.S. manufacturing plants to countries with cheap labor and poor environmental standards.
Two-way trade with Mexico has tripled to $250 billion a year since NAFTA, but the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen says NAFTA has also cost at least 360,000 Americans their jobs.
The Agriculture Department says one-third of American farm acreage is planted for exports, and 27 percent of that now goes to Mexico and Canada.
But Bill Christison, president of the National Family Farm Coalition, says that "commodity dumping, price manipulation and devastatingly low prices for farmers are just some of the casualties of the failed agriculture and trade policies" embodied by NAFTA and the WTO.
The Bush administration sees fast track as crucial to its role in the 142-nation WTO talks, now in their preliminary stage and scheduled to conclude in 2005. Its ambitious trade agenda also includes conclusion by 2005 of a free trade agreement for the Western Hemisphere.
Fast track could quicken (news - web sites) agreement on bilateral free trade pacts with Chile and Singapore, and open the way for possible talks with Morocco, Central America, the South African region and Australia.
|
|