Reagan Says He’ll Accept Trade Bill Compromise

Three days after Congress failed to override his veto of the omnibus trade bill, President Reagan reaffirmed his readiness Saturday to negotiate a compromise. But he warned that there is “no surer way of derailing our economy” than enacting protectionist measures that aim “to seal America off from trade and investment with the other countries of the world.”

In the wake of last week’s confrontation, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), a co-author of the vetoed bill, said Democrats were ready to bargain with the White House but continued to argue for the plant-closing safeguards that were a prime target of the veto.

Gephardt’s stress on the difference in views suggested Democratic determination to wring all possible election-year credit out of the plant-closing issue before agreeing to send the bill back to the White House without that provision.

As he prepared to travel to Toronto for his eighth and last economic summit with the leaders of the six other major industrial democracies, Reagan also touted the U.S.-Canadian trade agreement that will eliminate tariff barriers between the two nations by 1999. Delivering his weekly radio address from the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., Reagan called the accord “a model that can be . . . ultimately made universal among free nations.”

Gephardt, who delivered the Democratic response to the President’s talk, signaled that congressional Democrats would hold fast to the plant-closure provision, under which workers in plants with 100 or more employees would get 60 days’ notice of the employer’s intent to close down. The White House cited that section as a principal reason for the President’s veto on May 24.

“It’s unfortunate that the President chose to scuttle the trade bill because of his opposition to this provision,” Gephardt said. “We desperately need a trade bill. . . . We’ve seen our position as the world’s largest creditor nation erode to that of the world’s largest debtor. We continue to run historic trade deficits.”

The plant-closure measure, which until recently has had the active support of several major labor unions, has become a key issue in the political campaign. Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, whom Democrats are expected to nominate next month as their candidate for the presidency, last week called it “unconscionable” for the President to have vetoed the trade bill because it included the plant-closing section.

The Reagan Administration has argued that the provision would hurt businesses and is irrelevant to the trade issue. But the Administration appears sensitive to the negative political effect its opposition to the plant-closing feature could have, and Reagan’s talk made no references to the matter.