Wanted: Presidential Initiatives

(AP)  President Bush wants the Senate to act by April 22 to broaden his power to negotiate trade pacts and to renew trade preferences for four South American countries.

Mr. Bush was setting the unusual suggested deadline in a pitch for expanded trade Thursday at the State Department.

Several presidential initiatives have passed the Republican-controlled House in recent months, only to stall in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The president has noted this with increasing frequency, sometimes angrily, but has rarely demanded Senate action by a certain date.

The trade issue is especially dear to Bush, because he sees expanded trade as an engine for economic recovery.

The president wants the authority to craft trade deals that can't be altered by Congress. The House approved that "trade promotion authority" last December in a 215-214 vote secured after GOP leaders gave textile-state lawmakers a written promise that they would work to protect the industry from foreign competition.

Congress has granted every president from Gerald Ford to Bill Clinton trade promotion authority, the power to negotiate new trade agreements that Congress can approve or reject but cannot amend. However, this authority has not been renewed since it expired in
1994.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., wants the Senate to debate trade authority as early as this month. But he insists the bill also feature two other measures - one that would renew trade breaks for Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, and another extending a law for retraining displaced workers.

Separate bills giving Bush trade promotion authority and renewing Andean trade preferences already have passed the Senate Finance Committee. The White House wants them passed swiftly to the full Senate without being bogged down by legislation for displaced workers, which is being debated.

The Andean Trade Preference Act was enacted in 1991 to help the four Andean nations expand trade as an alternative to drug cultivation and trafficking. It expired Dec. 4, but Bush extended duty deferrals in February until May 16.

The White House believes the April 22 deadline would give the Senate enough time to pass both bills before May 16.

Bush's free-trade calls come weeks after he slapped new tariffs on steel and softwood lumber imported to the United States. The retaliations came in part because the administration concluded foreign governments were unfairly subsidizing those industries. Critics charged the moves were meant to bolster industries critical to his re-election.


By Scott Lindlaw