Lobbying Is Stepped Up for Trade Bill

Every president from Gerald R. Ford through Bill Clinton had it. President Bush says his administration would suffer without it.

But as a crucial House vote approaches Thursday, the White House and its Republican allies are still scrambling to secure the “trade promotion authority” they consider crucial to advancing U.S. economic growth in the years ahead.

With the outcome uncertain, House Republicans and senior administration officials have launched a last-ditch effort to round up support for a measure that would cede congressional power to the president in the negotiation of new international trade deals.

Bush, who has declared the trade bill a top legislative goal, is wooing fence-sitters with phone calls and face-to-face meetings. Heeding the call of GOP allies to take a more direct role in this and other issues, the president pressed his case Monday during a black-tie ball at the White House. He pressured a group of Florida Republican holdouts Tuesday on Air Force One. And he has dispatched Cabinet officials to twist arms on Capitol Hill.

“Congress has a decision to make: Whether we’re going to lead when it comes to expanding trade--or not,” Commerce Secretary Don Evans said Tuesday.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick, who joined Evans in lobbying lawmakers, argued that without expanded trade authority, Bush will be hindered in a new round of global trade talks. Zoellick said trade negotiations with Chile and Singapore have already suffered. “We need TPA,” Zoellick said, using the shorthand term for the trade promotion authority. “Not next year, not next month, not next week, but now.”

Congressional analysts say the bill would likely pass the Senate if it clears the House. It remains uncertain, however, how quickly the Senate would act.

If the Bush initiative succeeds, he would break a long-standing deadlock. The expanded trade authority he seeks lapsed in 1994, and Congress has stalemated over the issue since then.

To win over wavering lawmakers, including a handful of key Democrats, the trade bill’s advocates were exploring new relief for unemployed workers, including those thrown out of work after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Others were trying to assuage lawmakers nervous about how future trade deals would affect certain vulnerable domestic industries, such as textile producers, steelmakers and citrus growers.

The bill, crafted by Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and a handful of centrist Democrats, would give Bush an authority that in previous administrations was known as “fast-track.” Its key provision would, until 2005, strip Congress of the power to amend trade pacts negotiated by the president. Lawmakers would be allowed only up-or-down votes on the pacts.

Authority Is Seen as Bush Image-Builder

In addition to the usual arguments in favor of trade--boosting markets for U.S. exports and offering American consumers a broader and cheaper array of retail goods--administration officials recently have said Bush needs the authority to bolster his prestige on the world stage as he fights terrorism.

But despite Bush’s strong approval ratings as the nation wages the counter-terrorism war, the trade bill remains a tough sell. It comes at an awkward moment, just as the nation has been officially declared in recession.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), one of those who has refused to commit to the bill, was among a group who flew with Bush from Washington to Orlando on Tuesday, where the president conducted a town hall meeting.

Foley said that during the flight, Bush made a direct appeal for his vote--”37,000 feet of first-class arm-twisting,” he joked. But Foley said he was still leaning against the bill because of fears that Florida would lose out in future trade deals that might lower U.S. tariffs on South American citrus imports produced by growers who don’t have to pay minimum wage.

Many Floridians remember that tomato growers were hit hard by the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and they don’t want the same thing to happen with citrus.

“I understand and appreciate [Bush’s] position,” Foley said. “But I came to Congress representing these constituents, and their jobs are on the line.”

The politics of trade in Congress is always complex, and that is especially so in a House controlled by a thin Republican majority. While the GOP tends to promote free trade more than the Democrats, the issue cuts across party lines.

Plenty of Republicans from the Northeast and Midwest are sensitive to union concerns. Some from the Southeast seek to protect domestic textile jobs. Calls from the steel industry in recent years to enforce U.S. laws against dumping of cheap foreign imports have gotten a sympathetic hearing from many Republicans.

And while most Democrats back the position of labor leaders that any new trade deals should be made contingent on enforcing international labor standards, a significant minority of centrists and conservatives supports free trade in many situations.

Lawmakers on both sides of the issue, and those who are waffling, are keenly aware that Thursday’s scheduled House vote is considered a high priority by many powerful lobbies. Business groups backing the trade bill and labor groups opposed to it have told lawmakers they would be held to account in the 2002 election for their votes.

Calman J. Cohen, president of the Emergency Committee for American Trade, a business group supporting the trade bill, said the vote as of Tuesday looked “too close to call.”

Analysts said that the White House probably would have to intensify its deal-making to win the vote.

“My belief is that Bush will do what is necessary to get this thing passed in the House,” said Gary Clyde Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington. But he predicted that the president will be forced to make concessions on such issues as assistance for displaced workers, steel-industry aid, textile protections and more congressional oversight of trade deals.

Also in play are provisions in a different bill--the economic stimulus legislation that ranking congressional Republicans and Democrats are negotiating. GOP leaders have discussed accepting increased aid for the unemployed in an effort to shore up support for the trade bill.

Two dozen Democratic votes or more may be needed in the House to offset an expected 20 or so Republican defections.

“He’s paying a high price for each vote, higher than for any other trade agreement,” Hufbauer said. “Given that the vote count is so close, people who otherwise would go along with the president are now poking up their finger [and saying], ‘Do something for me too.’ ”

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Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this report.