Administration May Seek Aid for Exporters : $300-Million Subsidy Package Considered

The Reagan Administration, searching for ways to maintain the initiative on trade, is considering asking Congress for $300 million to help subsidize exports by U.S. manufacturers, officials said Monday.

The proposed request for additional funds for the Export-Import Bank, a program that the President earlier this year sought to scuttle, is part of a package of additional trade measures being assembled by top Reagan advisers, said Administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The trade package, expected to be sent to President Reagan’s desk for his scrutiny within the next few days, will also include a variety of other measures designed to demonstrate a new aggressiveness on the part of the Administration on trade, the officials said.

The Administration is determined to show a high level of activity on trade in the coming days to try to head off congressional passage of protectionist legislation, the sources said.

Although some of the proposals have been floated within the Administration before, this would be the first time that the various measures would be put together as part of an overall, emerging policy on international trade.

Provide Leverage

“Most of these things are designed to provide leverage to get trading partners to the bargaining table,” one official said.

Reagan, in his radio address on Saturday, announced that he was taking actions against Japan, South Korea, Brazil and the European Economic Community in an effort to try to open markets to selected U.S. products now subject to restraints.

“There may be a lot more of these cases--maybe a new one announced each week--all to try to show Congress that the Administration is on the job and not asleep,” said a Senate Republican leadership source.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) gave faint praise Monday to Reagan’s actions over the weekend. “The positive part is that the President has recognized that trade is a visible matter of concern,” Dole told reporters.

Asked if the President’s actions were enough to defuse the anger in Congress on trade, Dole replied: “No, it’s not enough.”

Reagan’s trade representative, Clayton Yeutter, said in a television interview Sunday that the President would “almost assuredly” veto a bill to impose import quotas on textiles--a bill that is given a high chance of congressional passage.

With 60 senators as co-sponsors--a solid majority if not quite enough to override a veto--the textile bill, perhaps with an amendment advocating trade restraints on shoe imports, could be the first of the nearly 300 pending trade bills to win congressional approval.

Yeutter met with Dole and other key senators late Monday to discuss trade issues, but Senate sponsors of trade legislation said they were still prepared to go ahead with the legislation, despite the Administration’s new efforts.

“I am very pessimistic that we’re going to work anything out with the Administration,” said Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.).

Yeutter told reporters that senators had expressed strong feelings to him on the need for legislation to protect import-battered U.S. industries. “It is apparent there is a great deal of concern on trade all over the country. That’s not something we have to come to Capitol Hill to learn,” he said.

May Impose Quotas

Danforth predicted passage of legislation to impose quotas on both shoe and textile imports within the month in the GOP-led Senate--and hinted that sponsors of the legislation may seek to attach it to vital legislation needed to raise the nation’s debt limit.

That would make the measure more difficult to veto, although Danforth and other GOP senators said they still considered a veto likely.