Can Democrats Take Yes for an Answer?
The issue of trade policy -- as critical to the nation's future as Iraq and every bit as divisive -- is now squarely before the Democratic Congress. It will almost certainly provide a huge challenge to its leadership.</br></br>The stage was set by a painfully negotiated deal between the White House and Democrats, announced last week, on the terms of trade in pending agreements with Peru and Panama. Those agreements with two small nations are just the overture for a much larger debate involving tariff-cutting deals with Colombia and South Korea. And then comes the monumental question of whether to give President Bush the same free hand that his predecessors have enjoyed in negotiating global and regional trade agreements, not amendable by Congress but subject only to an up-or-down vote.</br></br>Before last week, there was no chance that a Democratic Congress would trust Bush to look out for the interests of American firms and workers in any such negotiations. Now there is a chance -- but only a chance -- that the United States will be able to take its usual leadership role in moving the world toward an open trading system.</br></br>What created this opportunity was that after months of saying no, the lead negotiators for the White House, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab finally said yes to the inclusion of labor and environmental guarantees in the body of the trade agreements.</br></br>Such provisions -- requiring signatories to enforce internationally recognized standards banning child labor and prison labor and permitting union organizing, as well as requiring enforcement of their own environmental laws -- had been included in the final trade agreements negotiated by the Clinton administration and approved by Congress.