TPA Now Is Up to Bush

August 5, 2002

President Bush is expected to sign the long-awaited bill giving him and administration negotiators trade promotion authority - the right to finalize trade agreements knowing Congress can't change them, just approve or disapprove. The Senate vote last week was 64-34, a far more comfortable margin than the House tally of 215-212 several days before.

The legislation reinstates a power enjoyed by five former presidents until it lapsed in 1994 at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. A Republican-controlled Congress refused to renew the authority for President Bill Clinton.

With pro-trade forces stronger in the Senate than in the House, the fate of this bill - once past the House - was not in doubt in the Senate, where 43 Republicans, 20 Democrats and one independent supported the measure. Twenty-nine Democrats and five Republicans voted against it.

Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said the Senate's action "is great news for U.S. farmers and ranchers and for American consumers. With full authority to negotiate solid trade deals, U.S negotiators will now have a strong tool to ensure that U.S. farmers and ranchers have expanded access to markets around the world."

REUTERS reports from Brussels that European Union officials also welcomed the bill's final approval. World Trade Organization (WTO) chief Mike Moore echoed those sentiments, saying that the decision should make a significant difference to WTO efforts to negotiate a further lowering of trade barriers by 2005.

European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, said it meant the removal of an "important roadblock" to WTO talks launched in Doha last year. "We have to use this important development to generate real momentum in these negotiations," he said in a statement.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick said with TPA, "we will be able to complete free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore in short order. With TPA, we will have the credibility and the ability to advance our agenda in the new global trade negotiations. With TPA, vital trade preferences for Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia will be renewed immediately, benefiting thousands of workers seeking to avoid the illegal narcotics trade in those nations.