The Hard Part: OK by Congress : Politics: Accord could become a hot issue during campaign. Lawmakers are likely to seek protection for U.S. workers.

After spending the past 14 months painstakingly crafting a sweeping free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, the Bush Administration now is coming to the hard part: winning congressional approval.

Although lawmakers hadn’t seen enough details Wednesday to comment specifically, reaction in Congress ranged from skeptical to bitterly opposed. Even President Bush’s allies took a wait-and-see attitude.

Also, the timing of the accord--which U.S. officials insist was determined solely by the pace of the negotiations with Ottawa and Mexico City--threatens to pose major problems for the Administration as it seeks to enlist bipartisan support for the pact.

While the announcement may win Bush points at the GOP convention next week, it could become a political football in the presidential and congressional campaigns, leaving many incoming lawmakers skittish about the issue even before taking up any legislation.

Although Bush conceived and hammered out the accord, its fate would be in the hands of Democrat Bill Clinton if he wins the election. While Clinton favors a U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade pact, he has different views on many details.

And with the economy still in the doldrums, the Administration may find it difficult to convince American voters that the pact won’t add to unemployment by prompting U.S. companies to transfer their manufacturing to Mexico, where wages are lower.

“It’s a terrible time,” said William Schneider, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “There’s going to be a lot of posturing on this issue, and the polls already show that the American public doesn’t support it.”

Even if the recovery picks up steam, lawmakers are almost certain to press for provisions that would help U.S. workers who lose their jobs by giving them training for other kinds of jobs. Congress will also be looking to prevent companies on both sides of the border from doing more harm to the environment.

They also are likely to insist that business, including importers and exporters, pay the costs of such programs. With America already running a big budget deficit and Mexico also strapped for cash, lawmakers are loath to vote any federal monies for the job.

“The only way it would be worse,” Schneider said, “would be if the vote had to come before the election.” Under a special procedure that Congress established, the vote won’t occur until mid- or late 1993.

Bush will not be alone in facing hostility to the pact at home. The biggest battle may come in Canada, where voters already are upset by the bilateral free trade agreement that Ottawa signed with Washington in late 1987 and fear that Canada’s economy will be “swallowed up” if it broadens its links with the United States.

Canada-watchers say Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who himself is facing another election in June or September, 1993, will be under intense pressure. Whether he can win approval of the Canadian Parliament remains to be seen.

In Mexico, although President Carlos Salinas de Gortari controls the Senate, many Mexican businessmen fear new competition from America.

Reaction in the United States Wednesday came swiftly--and was not as virulent as some had feared. In Washington, Clinton, clearly trying to avoid making any early commitments, said he would support a free trade pact in principle but wanted to review the details more closely.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) and Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairmen of the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, respectively, took a similar tack. Both men announced that their panels would begin hearings on the accord in September.

Reaction from more hard-line lawmakers was relatively critical. House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) declared flatly that the U.S.-Mexican-Canadian accord was deficient and should be renegotiated.

Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) called the agreement “a jobs program for Mexico.” And Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) charged that the Administration “has put the interests of the citizens of the United States . . . aside to get a quick deal.”

As it stands now, Congress won’t have a chance to vote on the actual trade agreement itself, or even to cast ballots on related issues, until sometime next summer or fall.

Under so-called “fast-track” procedures renewed last year, the Senate gave up its right to ratify the treaty in exchange for a guarantee that Congress will have a say before the pact is signed and can later shape legislation needed to put it into effect.

The procedures effectively call for a two-part negotiation: Lawmakers have 90 days to make their demands for changes in the accord, which so far has been agreed to only in principle.

In January, Bush will submit enabling legislation designed to make the tariff cuts and other changes the treaty will require. Lawmakers then will have 90 legislative days--four to nine months--to approve that bill, without which the pact cannot take effect.

Both Democrats and Republicans expect a virtual free-for-all on Capitol Hill next year, with business, labor and agricultural interests and environmentalists each fighting all-out to force the Administration to alter the accord.

That battle began in earnest Wednesday, with labor groups stampeding to criticize the pact. Thomas Donahue, secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO, lambasted the accord as “a bad deal” for American workers and consumers.

It wasn’t immediately clear precisely what changes any of those interest groups would seek, or what revisions might prove acceptable to the Administration and to Mexico and Canada.

Now Bush Must Convince Lawmakers

President Bush faces a long and complex road ahead in his push to win congressional approval of the new North American Free Trade Agreement . Here is the “fast-track” procedure prescribed by law, and the timetable under which it would work:

Aug. 8, 1992: Bush announces agreement with Mexico and Canada. Negotiators begin work on legal text.

Mid-September: Bush formally notifies Congress that the agreement is ready and that he plans to sign it. He must wait 90 days before affixing his signature. Meanwhile, Congress makes known any objections that it wants the Administration to address in the draft accord.

Mid-December: Bush formally signs free trade agreement, begins working with lawmakers to draft the legislation that is needed to put the new accord into effect.

Mid-January: President submits enabling legislation to Congress. Lawmakers have 90 legislative days--four to nine months in calendar days--to approve the legislation. Under the procedure, Congress may not amend the treaty, instead must accept or reject it within the alloted time. The House has 60 days to take up the pact, the Senate has 75.

Summer or fall, 1993: Congress votes on free-trade agreement.

Source: White House, Senate Finance Committee