Trade Bill Wins Narrow OK in House

With a late surge of Republican support overcoming fierce Democratic opposition, the House voted Thursday to hand President Bush a major prize: special power to negotiate new international trade deals.

The 215-214 vote cleared the highest obstacle for legislation granting the Bush administration what it calls “trade promotion authority,” which permits the president to make trade agreements that are presented to lawmakers for simple yea-or-nay votes. Congress, explicitly empowered under the Constitution to regulate foreign commerce, would give up its ability to amend such deals at least through 2005.

It took every ounce of presidential muscle to get the bill through the House, with Thursday’s fight in doubt until the gavel fell. Republican leaders extended the roll call for more than 20 minutes as they beseeched a handful of GOP holdouts to vote with Bush.

The vote placed many Republicans in districts with industries vulnerable to foreign imports--such as citrus, sugar, steel and textiles--in an excruciating vise: support their president or protect their political base. Some other Republicans, who in years past have voted against trade deals to protest what they view as an erosion of national sovereignty, also were persuaded to change their minds.

Jubilant administration officials said the House vote would give an immediate boost to bilateral, regional and global trade talks. In the works are deals with Singapore and Chile, and far-reaching projects such as a free trade zone of the Americas and a new round on world commerce launched last month in Doha, the Qatar capital.

The trade bill, a major piece of the administration’s economic agenda, is a huge priority for business leaders who hunger for new markets for American-made goods.

For several years, the legislation has languished in Congress as critics have charged that the consequences of economic globalization for labor and the environment too often are ignored.

Now the trade bill heads to the Senate, where it is favored to win approval, probably next year. Bush’s certain signature would make it law.

The president, who twisted arms himself in the days and hours leading up to the House vote, hailed the outcome. “Trade promotion authority will give me the flexibility I need to secure the greatest possible trade opportunities for America’s farmers, workers, families and consumers,” Bush said in a statement.

Rhetoric flew from both sides about the effects of the bill.

Advocates called it a boon for consumers, guaranteeing them a broader choice of goods at cheaper prices; a shot in the arm for export-oriented industries; and a much-needed display of U.S. leadership in the world economy.

Critics see it as a giveaway to corporations, an erosion of congressional prerogatives and a blow to those seeking to lift environmental and labor standards around the world.

But the argument that seemed to put the bill over the top was made by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). In an impassioned speech on the House floor, he urged lawmakers to rally around Bush at a time of crisis in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“This is the defining vote of this Congress,” Hastert said. “This Congress will either support our president, who is fighting a courageous war on terrorism and redefining American world leadership, or it will undercut the president at the worst possible time.”

Leading Democrats expressed outrage at the suggestion that a vote against the bill was unpatriotic.

Their statements during and after the debate showed that recent efforts to forge a cross-party consensus concerning trade policy have taken a heavy blow. Only last year, the Republican-controlled House approved a major bill to normalize trade relations with China with the backing of more than a third of the Democratic caucus. On Thursday, just one-tenth of that caucus--21 Democrats--voted with the majority. Only 23 Republicans voted against the bill.

“This shatters the tradition of bipartisanship on trade bills,” said Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York, a leading Democrat on tax and trade issues who opposed the bill. “It’s clear that [the] Republican leadership was willing to offer other things that had nothing to do with the bill since they would not offer solid trade policy.”

Indeed, in the days leading up to the vote, there was heavy horse-trading. Republican leaders--guided by Reps. William M. Thomas of Bakersfield, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and David Dreier of San Dimas, chairman of the Rules Committee--inserted language in the bill protecting the citrus and sugar industries to help persuade nervous Floridians. They guaranteed lawmakers concerned with farm issues a prominent consulting role in future trade talks. They assured lawmakers representing textile-producing states such as South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia that Congress would take further action to protect that vulnerable industry.

Apart from those deals, leading House Republicans also had pledged Wednesday to push for at least $20 billion in aid to the unemployed as part of separate legislation intended to stimulate the economy through tax cuts. And the House early Thursday approved another bill authorizing more than $2 billion in assistance to workers displaced by the Sept. 11 attacks and other help for people left jobless because of competition from foreign imports. A number of Democrats derided those overtures as too little, too late.

The main provision in the trade promotion bill, crafted by Thomas and a handful of centrist Democrats, would grant special parliamentary protections to international trade deals concluded by June 2005. A two-year extension would be possible if a future Congress agrees. The authority could be revoked only if opponents can surmount significant parliamentary obstacles.

The no-amendment procedure for trade deals, known in previous years as “fast-track,” was given to every president from 1974 to 1994. It helped secure congressional approval in 1993 for the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement--knocking down barriers to trade with Canada and Mexico--and in 1994 for U.S. membership in the World Trade Organization.

But the special negotiating authority lapsed later that year, and efforts to revive it died in the House in 1997 and 1998.

While then-President Clinton took several important steps to expand trade, the election of his Republican successor last year guaranteed a renewed push for presidential trade authority. As a candidate, Bush campaigned for the authority. After he took office, he put it near the top of his legislative agenda.

As they have all year, on issues from tax cuts to spending bills, House Republican leaders pursued a strategy of getting as much of their agenda through the chamber as possible even by the slimmest of margins. The trade bill they sponsored did contain language promoting labor rights, environmental standards and congressional oversight. But it did not contain mandates and guarantees on those issues that senior Democrats would have preferred. With the two parties polarized, a tense debate ensued.

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) claimed that, with the nation in recession, Republicans had their priorities backward. “We should help workers first and debate fast-track later,” he said. Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Atherton), who represents the Silicon Valley, said she was distressed to vote against a trade bill for the first time since her congressional career began in 1993. “We in Congress have an obligation to stand next to [unemployed] workers in my district and the country,” she said.

Eshoo was joined in opposition to the bill by almost all the other 31 California Democrats, many of whom also had voted for trade measures in years past. The two Democrats who supported the bill were Reps. Calvin M. Dooley of Visalia and Susan A. Davis of San Diego.

By contrast, California’s 20 House Republicans lined up en masse behind the president--even some who had voted against trade bills before. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) was one of the last votes for the bill. A GOP leader draped an arm around his shoulders as he stood, wavering, in the center of the House floor.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) said he had planned to vote against the trade bill but that the September terrorist attacks changed his mind. “I don’t like free trade,” Hunter told the House. “But I like less the idea of weakening our president during this time of national emergency.”