Trade Mission Rules Take Aim at Politics

The Commerce Department announced new rules Monday designed to prevent abuses of its overseas trade missions, amid charges that Clinton administration officials have favored political contributors in deciding which business executives are invited on such trips.

The new regulations specifically prohibit any consideration of a firm’s political contributions in selecting the companies whose executives will take part in such missions. They also set up procedures to insulate the entire process from political pressures.

“There will be no politics allowed,” pledged Commerce Secretary William M. Daley, who had promised to clean up the system when he took office a month ago. He also lifted the 30-day moratorium that he had imposed on such trips in February.

At the same time, however, Daley refused to say whether the system had been abused in the past. He insisted repeatedly that a monthlong review he conducted before drafting the new rules “was about . . . going forward” and did not delve into past practices.

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But Daley conceded that “the system” of campaign financing “has gotten totally out of whack--at a presidential, Senate, congressional, local level--the cost of these elections all the way down to aldermen, councilmen . . all the way back up to the president.”

The controversy over the trade missions emerged after allegations that the late Secretary Ronald H. Brown, who died in a plane crash in Croatia last April while on such a trip, had permitted politics to influence the export-promotion program.

Reaction to Daley’s announcement was mixed.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and a major critic of the administration’s fund-raising activities, applauded Daley for “keeping his word” in proposing the reforms but reserved judgment on the substance of the rules.

Larry Klayman, director of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that has criticized the administration’s fund-raising practices, said the new regulations are “an improvement over what had existed,” but warned that they contain a worrisome array of “loopholes.”

The department has been sponsoring trade missions for years, inviting corporate executives to fly on government planes--often accompanied by the Commerce secretary or other high officials--to help them do business overseas.

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Critics contend, however, that in recent years the program has favored companies or executives who had made--or soon would make--contributions to the Clinton campaign or to the Democratic National Committee.

Here are the major elements of the new rules:

* Selection of corporate participants in department trade missions will be made by a panel composed of three career officials, not political appointees, and be reviewed by a five-member board that includes career lawyers and senior appointed officials.

* The panel will be insulated from pressures from political parties and from information about a firm’s political activities. Panel members will be barred from considering politics in making their choices.

* The department will develop a detailed plan for each trip, outlining the goal of the particular mission and setting “objective, written criteria” for the kinds of companies and executives that would best fit the mission’s objectives.

* The entire processwill be made public after each trip. The department also will ask participants to pay their share of air fare and other costs.