Congress, Reagan Fail to Make Trade Bill Deal

After two days of intense negotiation, congressional Democratic leaders Thursday defied President Reagan’s veto threats and abandoned further attempts to reach a compromise with the Administration on the omnibus trade bill.

They said that the bill, which would overhaul the nation’s trade policies, will retain a controversial provision to require manufacturers to give 60 days notice before closing unprofitable plants or laying off large numbers of workers. Reagan has threatened to veto any bill with that provision.

Citing Thursday’s report of an increased trade deficit and the 101-point stock market collapse in its wake, Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) announced that they had instructed House and Senate negotiators to prepare the final 1,000-page bill for forwarding to Reagan’s desk, for the all but certain confrontation.

‘More Than Half Way’

“We have gone more than half way to meet the Administration’s concerns,” Wright and Byrd said in a joint statement. “. . . We now believe strongly that we must move as quickly as possible with a strong trade and competitiveness bill, including protection for workers who are about to be laid off or whose plants are about to close.”

Earlier, representatives of organized labor told Democratic leaders that they could not endorse the trade bill if the plant closings measure was removed. Several other strong protectionist provisions favored by labor already had been deleted.

White House officials said that Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III and Reagan’s chief of staff, Howard H. Baker Jr., met on Capitol Hill with the Democrats before the announcement.

“The Hill didn’t make any offer and we didn’t ask for anything,” one White House official said.

Congressional staff members involved in formulation of the bill complained that the White House hamstrung negotiations by refusing to specify what Reagan would finally accept in a bill and what he would not.

‘Firm Commitment’

“While the Administration people have said what their objections are, they haven’t said definitely whether they would or would not sign the bill if A, B, or C are done . . . “ said one aide. “People up here need a firm commitment from the President that he will sign, if they are going to go ahead and drop something like plant closing.

“But the Administration has been jockeying for more concessions. We’re not going to let them nickel and dime us to death,” he said.

Administration officials have singled out several provisions as objectionable enough to force a veto, and most are still in the bill. They include a provision to limit presidential discretion in responding to allegedly unfair trading practices by other nations and a new, potentially expensive unemployment and job training program for workers who lose jobs because of foreign competition.

The Administration also opposes a retroactive three-year ban on Toshiba Corp. sales to the U.S. government to punish the Japanese company for a subsidiary’s sale of technology of military value to the Soviet Union.

Treasury Secretary Baker has warned that a veto could be triggered by a proposal that would inhibit foreign investment in the United States by requiring extensive and intrusive disclosure by investors. That provision is currently stalled in a deadlocked House-Senate conference.