April 17, 2007 – 7:49 p.m.
House Ways and Means Chairman
“We are prepared to give a restricted fast track, limited to the Doha convention,” the New York Democrat said Tuesday in remarks at the National Press Club.
Trade experts say that without fast-track authority, U.S. trade negotiators face a near-impossible task because other countries know that any deal would probably be butchered by amendments in Congress.
Current fast-track rules — which require expedited up-or-down congressional votes on trade pacts, without amendment — lapse June 30.
Rangel said Congress is unlikely to renew the law (PL 107-210) before it expires. Democrats want significant changes to the law and are now negotiating with the administration.
The absence of fast-track rules could effectively derail the World Trade Organization talks known as the Doha Development Round because the United States would be unable to reliably promise any concessions.
Rangel said any Doha-specific extension of fast-track rules must include key Democratic trade policy principles, the broad outlines of which he unveiled March 27. He has been negotiating details with U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab and other top House and Senate lawmakers from both parties.
Democrats say pending and future trade pacts, as well as any fast-track renewal, must reflect those priorities, including strengthened labor and environmental standards.
Rangel was vague, however, on whether a Doha-only fast-track extension would have to include enforceable International Labor Organization (ILO) standards, an issue that has stalled broader negotiations between lawmakers and the administration. The Doha talks, focused on helping the world’s poor, do not include labor issues.
“Whatever’s not needed won’t be there,” he said of a Doha-limited measure. As for the length of such a temporary extension, “How long will depend on someone giving us an estimate” of the time frame needed to complete Doha.
After meetings last week in New Delhi, Schwab joined other top international trade negotiators in proposing the end of the year as a new Doha deadline.
President Bush called on Congress to renew fast-track in January, but Rangel said the White House has not requested a Doha-specific extension despite the obstacles facing a full renewal of the law.
Rangel’s effort to forge a compromise with Republicans and the White House on trade recently stumbled because of concerns that Democratic demands regarding labor standards would expose U.S. labor laws to challenges. Rangel said his proposals had broad support until those objections surfaced. Sen.
The Democratic proposal calls for trade agreements to require countries, including the United States, to adopt, maintain and enforce core standards defined by the ILO that prohibit forced and child labor and guarantee workers’ rights to organize unions and bargain collectively.
Some experts, along with business groups, say that certain federal and state laws contradict core ILO standards and that others are open to challenge. For instance, Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Theodore Moran, a professor of international financial diplomacy at Georgetown University, have written that 20 states require prisoners to accept jobs to qualify for parole and that the Bureau of Prisons runs 100 factories that are not covered by minimum wage laws or the Fair Labor Standards Act.
These could violate ILO prohibitions on forced labor. Meanwhile, U.S. law allows companies to hire permanent replacements for striking workers, which experts say could conflict with an ILO ban on retaliating against striking workers.
“We’re still working on it and hope we can find language that Democrats and Republicans can agree on,” Rangel said.