Clinton Aims for Broader Backing on Trade Bill

EDGARTOWN, Mass. — President Clinton hinted on Saturday he may offer modest concessions to labor groups to help win support for his controversial “fast-track” trade legislation but said he intends to push hard for the measure, even if they remain opposed.

Clinton said the new trade negotiations that the fast-track bill would authorize are needed to boost U.S. exports and raise living standards. “If we don’t seize these new opportunities, our competitors surely will,” he warned in his weekly radio address, broadcast from Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where he is vacationing.

The president’s cautious wording suggested that he is unlikely to grant opponents’ demands that he make labor and environmental standards an integral part of any new trade accords that the administration negotiates, instead of confining them to side agreements. Labor and environmental leaders complain that such adjunct accords often are ignored by other nations.

Clinton did indicate that the administration may seek to placate labor by offering to expand job-training programs for workers who have been displaced by competition from abroad. Officials said such a move is under consideration, although no decisions have been made.

The president’s remarks were designed to pave the way for an expected full-scale White House campaign for the fast-track legislation, which it is slated to send to Capitol Hill next month.

Fast-track authority, which essentially would guarantee that Congress will act quickly to approve or reject any new trade accord and not try to amend specific provisions, has long been demanded by U.S. trading partners before they will begin negotiations.

The authority has been granted to both Republican and Democratic administrations since 1974, but it expired in 1994 after approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

The administration tried to renew the fast-track authority in 1995, but the bill failed in the Republican-controlled Congress because of a dispute over a bid by liberal Democrats to require that labor and environmental issues be part of the main agreement in future trade accords.

Administration officials concede that the proposal for fast-track legislation will be controversial. Lawmakers already are sharply split over the trade issue, and congressional strategists who have counted votes warn that the tally in both houses is apt to be close.

Organized labor is planning to mount its own campaign against fast-track legislation in early September, with both the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO preparing to launch grass-roots “educational” efforts to drum up opposition.

Labor groups charge that trade accords such as NAFTA have cost American jobs by prompting U.S. firms to move their production facilities to other countries and by enabling overseas businesses to “exploit” foreign workers by keeping their wages low.

Environmental groups contend that the accords contribute to global pollution by enabling companies that do business abroad to escape more-stringent U.S. environmental laws. Although more recent trade accords require tighter environmental standards, critics say they are not enforced.

The two groups have asserted they will seek to force the administration to agree to include provisions requiring U.S. trading partners to adhere to stricter labor and environmental standards directly in the main body of any new trade pacts, rather than relegating them to side-agreements.

However, while the administration briefly considered such a move, it now is expected to reject the demands of the labor and environmental groups as too restrictive. On Saturday, Clinton said only that he would “continue to promote worker rights and responsible environmental policies.”

At the same time, however, the president pledged to “keep working to strengthen retraining and educational opportunities for workers here”--a phrase that analysts said could pave the way for an expansion of training benefits for displaced workers.

Clinton has said he needs the fast-track authority to begin negotiations with key U.S. trading partners on a wide array of issues, from writing new rules for trade in agricultural products and financial services to expanding NAFTA to include Chile and other Latin American and Asian countries.

The administration contends that U.S. competitors, such as Japan and the European Union, already have negotiated such accords with Asian and Latin American countries, enabling their firms to beat U.S. companies to the punch in expanding export markets in those regions.

“Our workers and our businesses are the best in the world, but they can’t compete in the slow lane,” Clinton asserted Saturday.

Analysts say it is unlikely that Clinton’s recent effort to help the Teamsters by intensifying pressure on United Parcel Service to negotiate a settlement to this month’s strike against the company will soften labor’s opposition to the fast-track proposal.

Teamsters President Ron Carey criticized the administration’s trade policies last Tuesday, telling reporters that free-trade pacts are based on a concept that “throws away the jobs of American workers” and exploits workers overseas.