A Free Trade First

The House approved a free trade agreement with Jordan that breaks new ground in linking trade relations to the upholding of worker rights and environmental standards.

The lack of explicit protections for such rights and standards is a major complaint of the protesters who have dogged world leaders at global trade forums over the past two years.

The voice vote Tuesday moved Jordan a step closer to becoming only the fourth nation, after Canada, Mexico and Israel, to enjoy an essentially tariff-free relationship with the United States. The Senate Finance Committee approved the measure last week, and the White House supports it.

The agreement, the administration said in a statement, "will send a signal to Jordan, as well as other countries in the region, that support for peace and economic reform yields concrete benefits."

Under the pact, the U.S. and Jordan will phase out tariffs on each other's agricultural and industrial goods over 10 years.

While Jordan's overall trade with the United States is relatively small, the agreement Jordan reached with the Clinton administration last fall is unique in that it includes labor and environmental protections in the body of the accord.

It commits both countries to abide by their own existing laws concerning worker rights and environmental protection and says either country can appeal to a dispute resolution panel if it feels the other is violating those laws.

Many Democrats, and their labor and environment group allies, pushed hard for inclusion of those provisions and hope that the Jordan accord will become a model for future trade agreements, in particular legislation giving the president "fast track" authority to negotiate new trade relationships.

Republican leaders and business groups, on the other hand, say labor and environmental issues should be handled separately from trade and strongly oppose giving other countries the power to take the United States to international tribunals over environmental or labor disputes.

The Jordan agreement finally cleared the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees last week after Jordan's ambassador to the United States and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick exchanged identical letters stating that, if disputes arise, they would "make every effort to resolve them without recourse to formal dispute settlement procedures."

The letters corrected an attempt by the Clinton administration "to use this particular agreement to further its own agenda," said Rep. William Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He said trying to equate sanctions over trade violations with sanctions over labor and environmetal disputes was "an unacceptable structure."

But Democrats, while supporting the pact, objected to the need for the letter exchange. Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, top Democrat on the Ways and Means trade subcommittee, said ruling out enforcement procedures set an "unwise precedent."

Republicans, said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, "display their real paranoia about any attempt to protect workers and the environment from the potential adverse consequences of international trade."

The agreement won't have much effect on U.S. trade. The United States exported $313 million in goods to Jordan last year, making Jordan the nation's 75th largest market, while Jordan sold $78 million worth of its products in this country out of a total $1.8 billion in foreign trade.

According to the CIA, Jordan exports phosphates, fertilizers, potash and agricultural products while importing crude oil, machinery, transport equipment, food, live animals and manufactured goods.

But supporters said it would both help bring economic and political stability to the Middle East and give momentum to "fast track" or trade promotion authority legislation.

That legislation would give President Bush the power to engage in a new round of World Trade Organization trade liberalization talks with the assurance that Congress could approve or reject, but not amend, any agreement reached.

The administration has told Congress that it is crucial that he get that authority this year, but Democrats have insisted that they'll oppose any measure that doesn't contain language to protect worker rights and the environment.

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