Bush Links Free Trade to World Progress

President Bush decried the risk of “a new kind of protectionism” Monday, saying that by failing to negotiate new trade agreements, the United States is losing an opportunity to protect workers and the environment around the world.

In a speech that took his argument for expanded trade to a new level, Bush said that “open trade is not just an economic opportunity, it is a moral imperative.”

“Trade creates jobs for the unemployed. When we negotiate for open markets, we are providing new hope for the world’s poor. And when we promote open trade, we are promoting political freedom.”

Even before he spoke, Bush’s address prompted a bipartisan reminder from 61 senators. In a letter, they warned him that, in his push to negotiate new trade agreements, he must be wary of undercutting trade laws that protect American industry and workers from unfair foreign competition.

In a nine-minute speech at the State Department, Bush told about 300 business people assembled by the Council of the Americas that rather than leaving workers and the environment open to exploitation, as critics of more open trade fear, greater commerce would improve conditions by bringing with it greater prosperity.

“By failing to make the case for trade, we’ve allowed a new kind of protectionism to appear in this country,” he said. “It talks of workers, while it opposes a major source of new jobs. It talks of the environment, while opposing the wealth-creating policies that will pay for clean air and water in developing nations.”

The president’s speech reflected the administration’s heightened attention to trade this spring. Bush is planning to send Congress an outline of his trade agenda this week.

Last month, before the trade-oriented Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Bush vowed to fight intensely for the right to negotiate a hemisphere-wide trade accord without congressional interference.

President Clinton failed in 1998 to gain congressional support of what was then called fast-track authority, which the Bush administration has labeled trade-promotion authority.

The expanded authority would give the president congressional approval to negotiate a trade pact that the House and Senate could either approve or reject, but could not modify. It is considered extremely important because it would give negotiating partners assurance that if they completed an agreement with the president’s representatives, Congress would not be able to rewrite it.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the United States completed agreements to make commerce with Canada and Mexico subject to virtually no barriers, and played a central role in a pact that overhauled the global rules of trade.

Since then, the United States has retrenched, and a trade pact with Chile remains in the distance on this administration’s agenda--as it was on Clinton’s--but its prospects are uncertain.

“Canadian goods sold in Chile pay a lower tariff than American goods do, because the United States has left its trade talks with Chile unfinished,” the president said. “Free-trade agreements are being negotiated all over the world, and we’re not a party to them. And this has got to change.”

Buttressing his argument that free trade can improve conditions for workers and protect the environment, the president cited political reforms that have taken root in Mexico in recent years, as well as in Taiwan and South Korea.

“Societies that open to commerce across their borders will open to democracy within their borders, not always immediately, and not always smoothly, but in good time,” he said.

But critics argue that free-trade provisions can be used as obstacles to environmentalists who seek to prohibit trade in goods manufactured at the expense of the environment. And, they say, the rules can be used to turn aside complaints that foreign factories exploit workers.

In the letter sent by the 61 senators, Bush was warned that potential partners in free-trade pacts seek to weaken U.S. laws that prohibit “dumping” foreign goods on the U.S. market at below-market prices.

Asking Bush not to weaken protections against such dumping, the senators wrote that other countries simply may be engaging in a negotiating tactic when they seek to counter such American laws. But, they added, “the United States should no longer use its trade laws as bargaining chips in trade negotiations nor agree to any provisions that weaken or undermine U.S. trade laws.”

Those who signed the letter, which was drafted by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), included Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) the majority leader, and Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), the minority leader.