Bush to Delay Submitting Soviet Trade Pact to Lawmakers : Congress: The President wants to give Gorbachev a chance to defuse the Lithuania crisis. Moscow also needs time to meet U.S. conditions for special trade status.

The White House said Tuesday that it does not expect to send the new Soviet trade agreement to Congress for several months or more, a delay that will give Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev time to try to ease the stalemate in Lithuania.

While there is no formal link between the trade accord and a resolution of the Baltic republic’s bid for independence, President Bush may face considerable obstacles in winning congressional approval of the trade agreement if Congress doubts that the Baltic dispute will be settled peacefully.

“Call it linkage or call it reality,” said Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), summing up the difficulties that the Administration is likely to face if the Lithuanian situation is not resolved when the trade accord is debated by Congress.

The Soviets also hope to gain “most-favored-nation” status, which would grant low tariffs to their products imported by the United States. The sought-after trade status will not be conferred until the Soviet national legislature approves measures guaranteeing free emigration rights to Soviet citizens.

In Moscow on Tuesday, lawmakers tentatively put off adoption of the emigration law. The agenda it approved for the current session, which ends June 14, does not include the issue, and the Supreme Soviet does not reconvene until September.

The proposed legislation would allow those to emigrate who have entry visas from their host country and no current obligations, criminal charges or recent knowledge of state secrets.

Bush, meeting Tuesday with Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, told them that it probably will be months before action is taken in the Soviet Union on the emigration legislation, Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said.

“That may not be bad in the sense of it gives them a little time to work on the emigration issue and to make sure that everybody is aware of what their plans are,” Fitzwater said, indicating that the Bush Administration sees no problem in the delay.

Indeed, he said moments later, “it might well be that, by the time the emigration law was passed and we were ready to go forward with this, that there would be action on Lithuania.

“While the two are not linked directly . . . there’s an influence there that cannot be denied,” the White House spokesman said.

Fitzwater said that Bush decided to approve the trade agreement just half an hour before the signing ceremony, after Gorbachev repeatedly argued on behalf of the pact during their meetings Thursday and Friday.

Bush said at his joint news conference with Gorbachev on Sunday that the Soviet leader had given him no specific assurances that the economic embargo on Lithuania would be lifted, and he indicated that there is no linkage between Lithuania and trade benefits.

Under special trade legislation applying to Communist countries, the agreement must be approved by a majority vote in both the House and the Senate.

Actually, the agreement signed by the two presidents is mainly a symbolic turning point in the trade relations between the two nations. It covers the standard list of requirements set by the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment involving freedom of emigration. It also includes guarantees of property rights and currency exchange for American companies doing business in the Soviet Union. And it calls for establishment of consulates outside the respective capitals.

Bush’s signing of the trade agreement with Gorbachev on Friday during the Soviet president’s four-day visit to Washington drew sharp criticism Monday from Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.). He said that Bush had “effectively abandoned Lithuania” by completing the agreement without first requiring the Soviet Union to lift its economic blockade against the breakaway Baltic republic.

Mitchell said after the Tuesday morning meeting that he had heard nothing from Bush to change his opinion.

Assistant Majority Leader Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), who was among those on the Soviet president’s flight to California on Sunday evening, predicted that the trade accord would not win congressional approval without some progress toward a settlement in Lithuania.

When he told Gorbachev that the Congress would not ratify the trade agreement if there is violence in Lithuania, Gorbachev replied: “It’s not going to happen.”

In any case, Cranston said at a news conference after attending the White House meeting: “If there is any violence, I’m confident Bush wouldn’t submit it.”

Similarly, Cranston said he advised Gorbachev that the Senate would not ratify a strategic arms reduction treaty if there is violence in Lithuania. He said that Gorbachev replied: “Nothing like that will happen.”

Stating his own decision to vote for the trade agreement, Cranston said: “There always will be something that people will use” to deny the trade advantages to the Soviets. He added that the United States would also benefit from a trade pact.

Meanwhile, the flurry of post-summit diplomatic activity continued. Bush spoke by telephone with French President Francois Mitterrand on Tuesday morning to report on the Gorbachev meetings, Fitzwater said.

In addition, the White House spokesman announced that Bush will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu sometime before the July 9-11 Houston economic summit conference of the leading industrial democracies.

The spokesman also said that the White House Situation Room, the 24-hour communications and crisis center in the basement of the White House, received a message at 1:39 a.m. EDT Tuesday from Gorbachev, as the Soviet president’s Ilyushin-62M aircraft cleared U.S. airspace on the eastward flight from San Francisco to the Soviet Union.

“I wish to express my deep satisfaction with the results of my visit. The work we have done together during these days will bear good fruit,” Gorbachev said.

Times staff writer Sara Fritz contributed to this report.

BACKGROUND

The proposed Soviet emigration law would allow departures for virtually anyone who has permission to enter another country and no outstanding obligations, criminal charges or recent knowledge of state secrets. The bill, delayed in the Soviet legislature on Tuesday, would also set a basic limit of five years on the length of time a citizen can be kept from emigrating because of access to secrets. Complete details have not been released, but the bill is believed to codify many reforms already put into practice. Before the liberalization, tens of thousands of Jews and others were refused exit visas, becoming known as refuseniks.