Constituent Interests and U.S. Trade Policies

17. Trade and the 105th Congress: Overview

CHAPTER 17 Trade and the 105th Congress: Overview Bruce Wilson I. Introduction Trade will continue to be an active topic in the 105th Congress. However, with passage ofthe Omnibus Trade Act of 1988, NAFfA in 1993, and the Uruguay Round implementing legislation in 1994, the basic structure of U.S. law is weII established for the foreseeable future. It is unlikely that there will be serious efforts in the 105th Congress to pass comprehensive trade legislation to alter fundamentaIIy this basic structure. Rather, legislative initiatives in trade will be directed at specific issues and coalitions will form across party lines both in favor of, and in opposition to, such initiatives. At the time of writing (January 1997), the Clinton Administration had not yet stated what its trade legislation goals wiII be for the 105th Congress. We can expect some of the trade legislative initiatives to be similar to those unsuccessfuIIy pursued in the 104th Congress. Possibilities include: renewal of fast track; CBI parity; revision of Jackson-Vanik dealing with conditional MFN for China and others; and implementation of the OECD Shipbuilding Agreement. In addition, the 105th Congress wiII have to address expiring trade law provisions , most notably, renewal of GSP, which expires on May 31, 1997, and renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance, which expires on September 30, 1998. Bipartisan initiatives that have Member interest include the Subsaharan Trade and Investment Act. Certain Democratic Members may push trade initiatives they introduced in the last several Congresses-Mr. Gephardt's China and Japan biIIs; Mr. Frank's Child Labor Deterrence Act; Ms. Kaptur's NAFfA Accountability Act; and Mr. Spratt's Textile and Apparel Competitiveness Act. These Democratic proposals would be largely controversial for both the Administration and most RepUblicans. In the oversight area, the Ways and Means Committee, which is the Committee in the House of Representatives primarily responsible for international trade matters, will likely review the results of the Singapore Trade Ministerial , developments in APEC, developments in the Transatlantic Trade Dialogue, developments on a Free Trade Agreement for the Americas, imple- 324 Constituent Interests and U.S. Trade Policies mentation of NAFfA (the Administration must submit its 3-year assessment ofNAFfA by July 1, 1997), and the enforcement of U.S. trade agreements. Df all the trade legislation that might come before Congress next year at the request of the Administration, the most politically sensitive are likely to be any bills on fast track and China. These two topics are addressed in further detail below. II. Trade Legislation in the 104th Congress Trade was not a major item on the agenda of the 104th Congress. There were only two pieces of trade legislation that had to be passed because they were time sensitive-GSP and implementing legislation for the DECD Shipbuilding Agreement. While the Republican Congress did succeed in getting GSP renewed through May 31, 1997, as part of the minimum wage bill, it failed to enact the DECD Shipbuilding Agreement Act. That bill did pass the House with a series of agreement-inconsistent amendments but died in the Senate because of a division in the shipbuilding industry over the desirability of the legislation. The l04th Congress also enacted legislation extending permanent MFN to Bulgaria, Romania, and Cambodia; a law to extend the U.S.IIsraeli Free Trade Agreement to the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and a miscellaneous and technical trade bill. The 104th also passed several secondary country sanctions bills ostensibly aimed at our enemies (Cuba, Iran, Libya) but which have instead created major trade frictions with our allies. III. Politics of Trade in the 105th Congress Individual trade initiatives aimed at additional trade liberalization, either through new trade agreements or otherwise, face uncertain prospects in the 105th Congress. In the House, about one-third of all House Members will be either Freshmen or Sophomores without well-established trade positions. As for the 286 returning Members who voted on NAFfA and GATT in the 103rd Congress, they tend to be less pro-trade as a group than was the full House in the 103rd. For example, the 105th will have more Members who voted against NAFfA than who voted for it (143-140). This is due in large part to a disproportionate shrinkage of the pro-trade segment of the Democratic caucus. In this regard, only 28 percent of returning Democrats who voted on NAFfA in 1993 voted yes (as opposed to 40 percent of the Democratic caucus when the vote was cast). Moreover, only 58 percent of...