http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/16889108.htmPosted on Mon, Mar. 12, 2007
Democrats divided over free trade
By Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - In the 1990s, most Democratic lawmakers favored free-trade agreements. Now in control of Congress, however, Democrats appear increasingly divided over how much they'll support further expanding trade and under what circumstances.
The first big test could come July 1, when special trade-promotion authority granted to past presidents expires. Some senior Democrats say they'll renew the authority, providing the president agrees to seek labor and environmental protections as part of trade agreements.
But a growing number of other Democrats are signaling that they'll try to deny President Bush the right to negotiate trade deals that Congress can't amend. This could freeze global trade talks designed to open the exchange of agriculture and services.
Both parties know that many Americans equate globalization with job insecurity. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed that 48 percent think the global economy is harming the United States, and 46 percent said trade agreements harmed the United States.
That coincides with cries from an increasingly vocal wing of the Democratic Party that free trade hasn't been fair trade for the American worker. They point to the widening merchandise trade deficit - the amount that our imports exceed our exports - as one measure of how U.S. manufacturing - and workers - are losing.
"If an $840 billion trade deficit doesn't get your attention, it seems to me you are brain-dead," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.
Dorgan is the chairman of the Senate commerce and trade subcommittee, which oversees trade issues such as competition from foreign sweatshops and Chinese piracy of name-brand U.S. consumer goods.
Dorgan wants a new approach to trade policy. Together with freshman Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who was elected in November on a decidedly anti-trade platform, Dorgan announced that he'd taken the unusual step of inviting all freshmen senators to participate in his hearings on a new trade policy, even if they aren't members of the subcommittee.
"Our message ... is this is not going to be business as usual," said Dorgan, arguing that two decades of trade liberalization have cost U.S. manufacturing jobs and pushed down wages for blue-collar workers.
A softer tone on trade comes from the two Democrats who have the most direct responsibility for trade legislation: House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. Each supported trade pacts in the `90s. Baucus opened a trade-policy hearing March 9 by stressing the need to remain engaged in global trade talks.
FULL article at link.
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