AP News, May 7th, 2007
Congress may balk at extending the president's "fast track" trade authority this year if there is not significant progress in global trade talks, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said Monday.
That authority lets President Bush negotiate a trade agreement and submit it to Congress for a simple yes-or-no vote without amendments. It was last extended by Congress in 2002 and is to expire on July 1.
"Absent any progress, any meaningful progress on the Doha negotiations it's going to be difficult for, I think, the Congress to get excited about extending fast track trade promotion authority this year," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said at the National Press Club. "Many are going to say, `Wait, give it to the next president, why do we need it right now anyway because there's no Doha.'"
The Doha Round of world trade talks has struggled since its inception in Qatar's capital in 2001 and stalled last year. Negotiators have conceded that any treaty will be much harder to conclude after the expiration of Bush's trade authority, since Congress would be able to amend the agreement.
Baucus called those concerns "chicken and egg."
"The answer to that is, `Wait a minute, you weren't doing very much while they had it,'" he said.
Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Ways and Means committee, has said he would consider a short-term extension of the authority if a Doha agreement is imminent.
"We are prepared to give a restricted fast track, limited to the Doha convention," Rangel said last month.
Rangel, who opposed fast track authority in 2002, has also said that renewal must include requirements for tougher labor standards.
