By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Bush administration officials and key Republican senators have criticized a proposed restrictive amendment to a trade bill that would give President Bush trade negotiating powers; the bill itself remains stalled in the Senate.

During a May 9 press briefing, senior Republican senators joined Commerce Secretary Don Evans and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in opposing the amendment, which, they say, would undermine U.S. negotiators' ability to reach meaningful trade agreements under trade promotion authority (TPA), otherwise known as fast track.

Under TPA, Congress restricts itself only to approve or reject a negotiated trade agreement, within strict time limits and without amendments.

The amendment sponsored by Senators Mark Dayton, Democrat from Minnesota, and Larry Craig, Republican from Idaho, would exclude from TPA treatment provisions in any negotiated trade agreement that would alter U.S. antidumping, countervailing duty or other trade remedy laws. In other words, Congress would vote on those provisions separately from the rest of the agreement.

Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican from Iowa, said at the briefing that the amendment would make it extremely difficult for the United States to persuade its trading partners to improve market access and reduce subsidies.

"No country is going to want to negotiate with the United States if they know the Senate gives the President its authority to negotiate with one hand, but stands ready to take it back with the other," he said in a prepared statement.

Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona, said during the same briefing that the amendment would undermine the entire concept of TPA and negate "everything we have done in the past." Some provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement would have never been passed if such an amendment had been in force, he added.

Calling the amendment "dangerous" and "unnecessary," Zoellick warned that U.S. negotiators would likely fail to advance U.S. trade interests if Congress shackled them with restrictions such as the Dayton-Craig amendment.

It is dangerous, he said, because it would tie the hands of U.S. negotiators as they try to convince other countries to bring their trade remedy laws up to internationally-agreed standards. With this amendment in place, they might refuse to put those laws on the table, Zoellick said.

U.S. agriculture producers have complained that their exports are being targeted with increasing frequency by countries using antidumping duties as a protectionist weapon.

In a May 8 letter to Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a coalition of more than 80 groups representing agro-business said that the amendment might actually create a dangerous precedent.

"If the U.S. Congress enacts a law that carves out one sensitive topic from the negotiations, other governments are likely to do the same," the authors said.

Zoellick said that the measure is also unnecessary because the TPA bill gives clear direction to U.S. negotiators to "avoid agreements that lessen the effectiveness of domestic and international disciplines on unfair trade." Moreover, he said, the administration has already demonstrated that it is determined to enforce trade laws rigorously.

"You can't be for this amendment and for free trade. You can't be for this amendment and for agricultural trade," Zoellick said.

But supporters of the measure have said that it would actually strengthen the administration's hand in defending the standards of free trade. They have argued that the Senate should retain discretion under fast track to safeguard the ability of domestic constituencies to challenge unfair and illegal trade practices if other countries are willing to make trade concessions only in exchange for the weakening of U.S. trade remedy laws.

With the controversy over the Dayton-Craig amendment brewing, Senate debate over the trade legislative package, of which TPA is one part, can become more contentious.

The deliberations have remained stalled over expansion of trade adjustment assistance (TAA) -- trade benefits for workers who lose their jobs as a result of imports, another part of the package.

Grassley, senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said he expected that he and Democratic Committee Chairman Max Baucus, after weeks of negotiations, would be able to present a compromise TAA provision soon.

In another development, late May 8 the Senate passed by voice vote an amendment sponsored by Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat from North Dakota, that would open up to more scrutiny a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) mechanism for settling foreign investment disputes. It would require Zoellick's office to renegotiate with Canada and Mexico the relevant provision of Chapter 11 within 12 months of enactment of the trade bill.

Besides TPA and TAA, the trade package includes reauthorization of the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) tariff benefits for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, which expired in December, and reauthorization of Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) tariff benefits for developing countries, which expired in September.

President Bush has lobbied hard for TPA in order to conclude agreements in World Trade Organization and Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations as well as in other regional and bilateral negotiations. Since the previous grant expired early in 1994, attempts to reauthorize TPA have failed.