Critics Ask: Who’s Going to Pay for Free Trade Retraining Program? : Jobs: Labor Secretary Lynn Martin is criticized for failing to explain how the Administration plans to pay for retraining victims of free trade.

Labor Secretary Lynn Martin ran into sharp Senate criticism Thursday for the Administration’s failure to explain how it would finance the retraining of workers who might lose their jobs from a continental free trade agreement.

Martin said the trade pact should result in a net U.S. job increase but stressed that the retraining funds were there to help those who lost jobs--which she estimated at a maximum of 150,000.

The criticism raised new questions about congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, signed with Mexico and Canada last month.

Martin told the Senate Finance Committee that the $670 million President Bush proposed last month would retrain any workers who might lose jobs as a result of the agreement, but she did not say where the money would come from.

Martin said a funding plan would be included in the next budget proposal sent to Congress, which would be in January, but both Democrats and Republicans objected to the promise of a program without spelling out how it would be paid for.

The criticism has centered on potential job losses from U.S. factories moving south to take advantage of Mexico’s low wages and its allegedly lax enforcement of clean air and water regulations.

Committee Chairman Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) said that without details of the retraining program, “the North American Free Trade Agreement will surely be a dead letter next year.”

The pact must be approved by the legislatures of all three countries, with Congress not due to vote until next spring.

Bentsen added that “without telling the American people where the money will come from, this program just looks like empty campaign promises.”

Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, the committee’s senior Republican, said he agreed with Bentsen that “there is no NAFTA without a good jobs bill.”

And Republican Sen. Bill Roth of Delaware added that he too was concerned about the lack of funding for the proposal and renewed his plan to fund it by an import fee.

“Those who gain from trade should be willing to help those who feel its pain,” Roth said.

“I’ll take your message on” to the White House, Martin said.

Similar levies have been suggested by House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the subcommittee on international trade.

The United States, Mexico and Canada reached agreement on Aug. 12 to end tariffs and open closed markets in Mexico gradually over 15 years, starting in 1994.

Many Democratic lawmakers criticized Bush for what they said was politicizing trade policy, especially his call for Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton to take a stand on the NAFTA when the agreement had not even been completed.

Clinton has said he backed the concept of free trade but would not comment on NAFTA without first studying it.

Gephardt on Wednesday called on Bush to renegotiate the agreement or allow it to be taken up by a “new Administration” after the December elections.

But Martin said “the plain truth is that trade with Mexico provides substantially more and better jobs for Americans than it takes away. A fully implemented North American Free Trade Agreement will create more exports and more job opportunities, not less.”

She said six to eight industries would likely be hit hardest and identified textiles as one of them. U.S. Trade Representative Carla Anderson Hills earlier cited household glass and seasonal farm produce as two that would be hit.

U.S. tariffs on those goods, as well as some footwear and fruits and vegetables, would be phased out gradually to ease the impact on American producers.