Congress likely to clash with Bush on trade

Congressional Democrats pledged this week to work with President Bush when they assume control of the House and Senate next year, but there is one issue where disagreement seems all but assured: U.S. trade policy.

For the last six years Bush has had little difficulty getting trade agreements through a business-friendly Republican Congress, but the new Democratic majority will include several members who campaigned against free trade.

One of the first battles could be over the president’s authority to get trade deals approved quickly.

The U.S. Trade Promotion Authority Act, known as “fast track,” streamlines the approval process by allowing the president to negotiate trade agreements without consulting Congress, and requires an up-or-down vote within 90 days. Passed in 2002, it expires in July, and the Bush administration is expected to seek reauthorization.

Senator-elect Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) -- a foe of free trade while in the House -- and a slate of new lawmakers plan to block fast track unless it’s amended to include protections for domestic and foreign workers.

“It’s not going to be the president’s call on getting what he wants,” Brown said Friday. “I don’t think the Bush administration will go for [reauthorization] right away, but we need to start now.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who won reelection by promising legislation to create a trade prosecutor to investigate countries such as China that violate U.S. trade agreements, said Bush’s trade policies have failed to protect American workers.

“Our trade policy needs to be one that expands jobs in America and maintains our standard of living. It should not be about creating a race to the bottom on wages,” Stabenow said Friday, adding that she plans to resubmit the trade prosecutor bill in January.

Democratic party leaders also have indicated that trade is among their top priorities. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), set to chair the powerful House Ways and Means Committee that oversees trade agreements, is expected to tackle trade policy immediately.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), likely the next Speaker of the House, intends to address Democrats’ trade concerns as part of the majority’s “Six for ‘06” agenda -- “looking at trade policies and making them more fair” for U.S. workers, according to spokesman Brendan Daly.

Republicans will push for approval of several specific trade agreements during this month’s lame duck session, according to staffers on Capitol Hill and at the Office of the U.S. trade representative. The list includes agreements with Colombia and Peru and normalizing trade relations with Vietnam in time for the president’s visit to Hanoi next week for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

As for fast track, R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says he expects a limited extension, one that would only allow specific trade deals to go forward. But he worries the Democratic Congress will turn protectionist, bogging down trade agreements with extra requirements and penalizing countries like China.

He pointed to a bill proposed by Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) earlier this year that would have imposed a 27.5% tariff on Chinese imports until that country revalued its currency. “Are you just going to do that with China?” Josten asked. “What about Japan? What about India?”

U.S. trade officials are optimistic that they can preserve the president’s trade authority with the help of moderate Democrats. They are counting on more senior, moderate lawmakers to shape trade policy, including Rangel and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), incoming chair of the Finance Committee, which oversees trade policy in the Senate.

“The chairmen who actually will map out the agenda have sort of said this is what we want to do, that they want to work with us,” on reauthorizing fast track, said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the office of the U.S. trade representative.

Rangel supports fast track “in principle,” according to a congressional staff member, but believes trade policy needs to include more enforcement of worker protections.

“His view is that the confidence in U.S. trade policy has dramatically declined. There’s been a broad perception that globalization is not being structured in a way that its benefits are being spread broadly,” said the staff member, who asked not to be identified.

Rep. Ellen A. Tauscher (D-Alamo), an investment banker who chairs the moderate New Democrat Coalition, told the pro-business group Thursday that she is circumspect about renewing fast track.

“We don’t believe we’ve gotten the best agreements through the authority we gave this president,” she said, “and frankly, unless there’s some changes, I think we have to consider what we will do, whether it lapses and we wait until we have a Democratic president in 2008.”

molly.hennessy-fiske

@latimes.com

Times staffer Jim Puzzanghera contributed to this report.