When Congress convenes next week, many local business leaders
desperately hope it will reconsider an issue they consider vital to
their ability to compete globally: Fast-track negotiating authority.
But if it does, labor leaders – and some key local politicians – will
battle it with equal vigor.
Fast track refers to a transfer of power from Congress to the
President. Under fast- track agreements, Congress considers trade deals
made by the president with other nations and votes the entire measure up
or down – with no amendments. Supporters call it an essential policy,
because foreign nations are reluctant to enter into agreements that
could be altered by Congress.
President Nixon, in 1974, was the first to enjoy such power. Since
then, Congress has granted the same power to every other president.
Every president, that is, except one: President Clinton. On Sept. 25, it
handily rejected a proposal to grant it. And the previous year a similar
proposal was withdrawn after its sponsors realized it faced certain
defeat.
That was good news to labor leaders, such as the AFL-CIO, which
argued that the bill did not protect working conditions and
environmental standards in other countries, and that agreements such as
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have had disastrous
impacts on U.S. workers.
“If Congress is asked to consider a bill identical to the one they
defeated this fall we will vigorously oppose it,” said David Smith, the
AFL-CIO’s director of public policy. “Trade can be good, it can be
enriching, but it’s not automatic. It needs to be twinned with efforts
to steadily improve the wages and rights of working people so they can
benefit from trade.”
Opinions over the merits of free trade and fast-track authority
vary. While labor leaders slam NAFTA as an attack on working people,
Larry Liebenow, chief executive officer of Quaker Fabric Corp. in Fall
River, Mass. – which employs some 2,500 people – said his company has
150 jobs that exist solely because of access to Mexican markets opened
by NAFTA.
But Liebenow added that Quaker’s effort to expand trade has been
hampered by the United States’ inability to negotiate trade agreements
with other nations, meaning exported Quaker goods are hit with duties
that reduce their competitiveness.
Fast track, he added, would help the United States keep pace with
countries that are now negotiating trade deals all over the world.
“What we’re trying to do is get the same kind of treatment for our
products around the world that other countries have in selling in the
U.S. market,” Liebenow said. “Unfortunately, we have not had the support
of (local) congressional delegations, which is a very big problem for
the industry.”
He’ll get no support from U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, D-R.I., who
has staunchly opposed it. Kennedy, who visited Mexico last year, said he
saw people who worked 70 hour-weeks for $17, and “an environmental
wasteland of sewage and garbage dumped by American companies.”
“Anyone voting for fast track must be willing to take the place of
the people and workers beyond the border,” he said in a statement. “If
we don’t have proper enforcement of labor and environmental standards
abroad, we hold down American wageswe create a race to the bottom.”
But the United States will never be able to deal with issues such as
human rights and environmental concerns if it fails to negotiate with
foreign nations, business leaders argue.
“Trade can be the most powerful unifier for common beliefs such as
environmental concerns,” said Raymond W. Fogarty, director of the Rhode
Island Export Assistance Center at Bryant College. “If you’re not at the
table you can’t address those things.”
Specifically, the United States is losing to its competitors –
Germany and Japan, for example – which are negotiating deals with South
and Central American nations while the United States sits on the
sideline, business leaders warn.
Losing business abroad has local effects, said James T. Brett,
president and chief executive officer of The New England Council, an
alliance of business, academic, and health institutions formed to
promote economic growth. Trade supports 14,400 jobs in Rhode Island,
17,100 in Maine, 26,500 in New Hampshire, 36,400 in Vermont, 164,700 in
Connecticut, and 221,000 in Massachusetts, according to the council.
And while the Ocean State was one of three New England states that
saw exports increase in the second quarter of 1998 (up 4 percent)
compared to the same quarter last year, overall regional exports have
dropped. Paper, electrical equipment, and fabricated metal exports have
all dipped, according to the council. Brett cited the Asian economic
crisis as one of the key reasons for the decline.
The United States, he said, needs to create new markets to recoup
these losses.
But whatever negotiating that does occur between the United States
and foreign trade partners should include business leaders, said Al
Lubrano, chairman of Technical Materials Inc. in Lincoln and chairman of
the board of the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association.
“I think politicians need to involve business people when you’re
talking about something like fast track,” Lubrano said. “Typically, this
country allows (other nations) to export into the U.S. with few
barriers.”
When Congress failed to re-enact fast track authority in September
for the first time since it lapsed in 1993, Democrats were largely
responsible for the defeat. Fast track supporters found this ironic. But
opposition to the idea is strong.
But if the United States continues to insist on having ‘perfect’
trade agreements it will continue to lose out to other nations, and will
sacrifice its status as a world leader in trade, said John Howard,
director of international policy and programs for the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce.
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