Panels Reject Moves to Block Trade Talks : Congress: Attempts to halt Bush’s fast-track authority in bargaining with Mexico and other nations are defeated. Bitter floor fight expected.

House and Senate committees turned aside efforts Tuesday to block U.S. trade talks with Mexico, setting the stage for what promises to be a bitter fight next week on the floors of both houses of Congress.

By overwhelming votes, the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees rejected proposals to deny the Bush Administration a two-year extension of “fast-track” authority in its trade negotiations with Mexico and other countries.

The Administration says its trading partners will not even come to the bargaining table unless White House negotiators are given fast-track authority--in effect, a promise that Congress will consider any agreements in their entirety and not pick them apart with amendments.

“This is one of those moments in history when the United States decides either to go forward or backward,” said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee’s trade subcommittee.

Baucus warned that failure to proceed with the Mexico trade talks would amount to “signaling to the world that we Americans . . . are not really sure we can meet the economic challenges of the future.”

However, others questioned whether Congress might be handing the Administration too much power if it cedes its ability to amend the ultimate agreement.

“Mexico wants negotiations. The United States wants negotiations. It has not yet been satisfactorily explained to me why these negotiations can’t occur while preserving the normal legislative role of Congress,” Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) said.

Once the deal is struck, Rep. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) warned, “there will be 100 times more pressure (on Congress) to vote for the product that has already been negotiated.”

And, although President Bush has pledged to take Congress’ concerns into account as Administration negotiators hammer out the Mexico trade agreement, “promises and soothing sounds mean nothing,” Dorgan added.

A powerful coalition of opponents, led by organized labor, has warned that many American workers could lose their jobs if the Administration strikes a free-trade agreement that spurs U.S. industry to cross the border in search of lower labor costs and less burdensome government regulation.

“Job flight and industrial loss--those are not just slogans. They have been a reality in the ‘80s and remain a peril in the ‘90s,” Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) said.

But supporters say that freer trade is one of the best hopes for continuing the export boom that has provided a major share of this country’s economic growth in recent years.

“Trade has assumed a new importance in our economic future. Here we are, in the middle of a recession. More than any time in the past, America will have to export its way back to prosperity,” the Finance Committee chairman, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), said.

Canada also is participating in the Mexico talks, which seek to create what is being billed as a North American Free Trade Zone.