President Calls Trade Bill Peril to Exports, Jobs

President Reagan on Saturday stepped up his pressure on Congress to soften the omnibus trade bill, again warning that he would veto the measure if lawmakers do not cooperate with the Administration to strip away its more protectionist provisions.

In his weekly radio address to the nation, Reagan called the current version of the trade bill “a serious threat” to the export boom that the United States now is enjoying “and to the millions of American jobs that depend upon international trade.”

“My veto pen is ready,” he said. Noting the slow but steady improvement in the U.S. trade deficit in recent months, he warned that “it would be a tragic mistake to surrender to doubt and defeatism” by passing the measure “just when our prospects are looking so bright.”

Reagan made his remarks as Senate conferees considering the huge 1,100-page trade bill prepared for a round of meetings this week to weigh a series of House proposals to scrap some of the bill’s more controversial provisions. Seventeen separate conference subcommittees are working on the massive proposal.

Among the provisions they are expected to kill is a plan by Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, a Democratic presidential candidate, to impose automatic penalty tariffs on other countries that amass huge trade surpluses with the United States.

The Administration also opposes a provision backed by labor that would require major companies to notify workers in advance of mass layoffs or plant closings, a requirement that foreign companies serve notice in advance when they plan to take over American firms and a proposal to force the President to impose sanctions against countries found to have unfair trade practices. The current law gives the Administration the discretion to reject such remedies.

Cutting Protectionist Sections

Congress has been steadily pruning the trade bill of its more protectionist sections and is expected to jettison them more rapidly in the wake of Gephardt’s failure to make a strong showing with the trade issue in last week’s Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses.

Many congressional leaders believe that protectionist sentiment has peaked on Capitol Hill and that lawmakers now want only to enact any sort of trade measure, no longer caring how “tough” it actually is. Reagan said Saturday that trying to reduce the trade deficit by enacting legislation would risk destroying the nation’s prosperity.

Reagan’s address marked the second time in two days that he has threatened to veto the trade bill if it is not substantially rewritten in conference committee. The President sounded a similar theme in a speech to a group of business leaders Friday. On both occasions, he said his veto pen “is ready if the final work product of the conference remains anti-trade, anti-consumer, anti-jobs and anti-growth.”

At the same time, however, Reagan both times added a conciliatory note praising the lawmakers’ efforts to prune the measure of some protectionist provisions. “Many objectionable provisions remain . . . but I’m hopeful within the next phase (of negotiations) these will be jettisoned,” the President said. “I am encouraged by reports on the status of the trade bill negotiations,” he said Saturday. “It is still possible to write a bill that I can sign.”

Reagan Policies Assailed

Nevertheless, Democrats lost no time in seizing on the President’s remarks to criticize the Administration’s trade and economic policies.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N. M.), delivering the Democratic response to Reagan’s radio address, contended Saturday that the President’s “feel-good rhetoric” is “papering . . . over” serious problems, such as the trade and budget deficits, which he said “are monthly reminders that America is not the economic power that we once were.”

“Mr. President, feeling good and staying the course just are not doing the job,” Bingaman said. “It does not help to pretend that the problems don’t exist. . . . We’re ready to invest the time, money and energy in revitalizing the American economy.”