Trade Bill Passes Minutes After Reagan Denounces It : 59 in GOP Defect as House Votes

With 59 Republicans defecting, the House today approved, 295 to 115, sweeping trade legislation calling for major import restraints, acting only minutes after President Reagan denounced the bill as “openly and rankly political.”

Only four Democrats joined the 111 Republicans voting against the measure.

The measure, which gained support from pressure over job losses in many members’ districts caused by imports, now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to get a distinctly cooler reception.

Just a short time before the vote, Reagan told the American Retail Federation that “economic growth in America and around the world would be the casualty” of such trade legislation. And White House spokesman Larry Speakes branded the measure “an A-1 candidate for veto.”

Fierce Arguments

Although the Reagan Administration and members of Congress agree that something must be done to erase America’s huge trade deficit with other nations--it hit nearly $150 billion last year--there have been fierce arguments on how best to get the job done.

Reagan has favored working quietly with U.S. allies and trading partners to coax a wider opening in world markets for U.S. products and services, while many lawmakers have insisted that only retaliatory measures would work. Smack in the middle of the debate are a wide array of lobbyists, for business, farmers, labor unions and others, with their own conflicting views.

The vote came after a three-day debate in which sponsors of the measure said it was needed to counter the record trade deficit last year and resulting layoffs. It calls for retaliation against unfair tactics by foreign competitors and would require import curbs for threatened industries.

The measure also contains provisions to roll back Japanese trade surpluses in the U.S. market at a rate of 10% a year. Critics claimed that would bring retaliation against U.S. farm exports.

‘Just Wait Till They See . . . ‘

“If you think farmers have it bad today, just wait until they see what it would be like under protectionist trade laws that we have in this Congress,” House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) said.

“This isn’t a protectionist bill,” Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) said. “It is an anti-protectionist bill.” He called it a remedy for “the trade cancer that is gnawing at the vital organs of our nation.”

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said the measure is “viewed with alarm” in the Senate.

Moments before approving the measure, the House rejected, 265 to 145, a rival Republican version that would have deleted many of the most heavily debated provisions. It also included a move to speed up textile negotiations.

‘An Anti-Trade Bill’

In his speech, Reagan said the House Democratic leadership “has put together a trade bill--rather, I should say, an anti-trade bill--that is openly and rankly political.”

Reagan maintained that the measure “would cost American consumers billions and undercut the millions of American jobs connected with foreign trade.”

Rep. Don J. Pease (D-Ohio) speaking after the House repeatedly refused to delete key provisions of the measure, declared: “There is a bipartisan majority in the House that does not adhere to the Administration line that we must lie prostrate before international competitors.”

“This is the opening cannon shot in a new trade war,” Rep. Bill Frenzel (R-Minn.) said. He echoed the Administration’s warning that the get-tough measures are certain to bring retaliation against American exports.

GOP attacks on bill crushed, Page 5.