Déjà vu: Democratic President battles his own party on trade
(CBS News) - As President Obama continues to push his trade agenda through Congress, we note that this isn't the first time a President's trade agenda was temporarily derailed by members of his own party
When former President Bill Clinton negotiated "NAFTA" (North American Free Trade Agreement), he had similar battles with his own party. On November 14, 1993, Vice President Al Gore responded to our lead guest on Face the Nation: the top Democrat in the House, Majority Leader Dick Gephardt. As with some of today's Democratic leaders in the House, Gephardt forcefully opposed the White House on trade.
"Isn't it unprecedented," asked then-host Bob Schieffer, "for a person in a high leadership post-- such as you hold in the House of Representatives--to take such a high-profile opposition to the President?"
Gephardt defended his position and suggested that the trade fight wasn't a partisan issue.
"There are Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the issue, so it's not your normal party-line kind of issue," he said.
"I just think this is a very important issue for our country. It's an issue that has immense economic consequences for us and for Mexico and Canada. It's something that I feel deeply we've got to get right, and I don't think this NAFTA is the right NAFTA."
Later in the broadcast, Vice President Al Gore made the case for the administration, arguing not so much about the jobs the deal might save, but about the foreign policy implications of not passing the deal. That argument is nearly identical to one backers of the current trade agreement make.
"A defeat for NAFTA in the foreign-policy arena would be really catastrophic," Gore said.
"The President goes out to the APEC conference the day after the NAFTA vote. That would be a terrible thing to do to the President and to do to the country. The other countries around the world that are looking at this GATT negotiation are just waiting to see whether or not we have the courage of our convictions, whether we're willing to walk the walk our just talk the talk."
In the end, NAFTA passed, but the debate over trade raged on. Twenty-two years later, when Barack Obama pushed Democrats to give him authority to negotiate trade deals, he was stiffed by his own party, including the leader of House Democrats Nancy Pelosi.
Additional reporting by Robert Hendin and Louise Dufresne
