Bush Working on Visit for CAFTA Presidents, Finance Committee Stalled
May 02, 2005
The following article gives a good summary of where the Bush administration and the legislature are at regarding CAFTA's approval. It was published in in Inside US Trade on April 29.
In what supporters say is the first sign of presidential involvement in the fight for approval of a free trade agreement the United States negotiated with possible Central American countries, the White House is planning a meeting between President Bush and the presidents of the five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic next month, according to informed sources. Central American presidents had lobbied for this visit for a long time, sources said.
U.S. officials are working out the schedules of all participants and once that is done, the White House will issue the official invitation, a U.S. trade official said. He insisted that no firm dates had been set, but other sources said that a meeting between Bush and the Central American presidents is tentatively scheduled for May 12. This will be three days after the presidents arrive in the United States to lobby for congressional approval of the controversial deal, they said.
The presidents' visit will likely include a major event sponsored by a business group in Washington, and meetings with members of Congress by individual ambassadors, they said.
Bush's message at the time of their visit will likely highlight that the DR-CAFTA is not only a vote for trade but a step that is important in geopolitical terms, one lobbyist said. It will likely highlight that the agreement will help build democracy, security and the rule of law, as well as improve the living standards of people in the region, he said. U.S. trade officials have made these points with increasing emphasis in recent days during public presentations on the free trade deal.
But opponents of the DR-CAFTA have highlighted that the agreement will likely have a destabilizing impact on these countries, partially by displacing subsistence farmers that cannot compete with subsidized U.S. agriculture products.
The preparation of the presidents' visit could be an indication that the White House is moving closer to a political decision that it wants to work for the DR-CAFTA's passage, sources said. Once that decision has been made, it will free up officials to make the deals with members of Congress that are necessary to pass the agreement, a Senate aide said.
Without that political decision, the leeway given to officials in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is limited, the aide said. At this point, trade officials have not approached members with specific deals that could address issues raised by individual members, he and other sources said.
The mock markup of the DR-CAFTA in the Finance Committee is only likely if there is a clearer understanding on what the vote count is, and that is only possible once the administration is fully involved in the fight for DR-CAFTA, a Senate aide said.
Work in the Finance Committee is stuck until there are sufficient votes to defeat an expected amendment from Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) that would exclude sugar from the DR-CAFTA unless the administration met certain conditions that could not be realistically be met, a U.S. trade official said. Right now, every Democrat on the committee would vote for such an amendment if it were offered, according to informed sources.
In addition, there is the danger that the administration could lose between one to three Republican votes on the committee, which would mean the administration would have to pick up two Democrats, these sources said. The administration believes the top three Republican members most likely to vote against the DR-CAFTA are Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID), Craig Thomas (R-WY), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), these sources said. Crapo is the most likely to vote against with Snowe the least likely.
USTR only wants the vote to proceed if it is clear that the expected sugar amendment will be defeated and that this will not amount to a repeat of a beef amendment to the Australia FTA, they said. In that case, the administration thought it had two votes more than it needed to defeat the amendment, but it lost the vote, they said.
Conrad has not revealed which amendments he will offer. He considers it premature to discuss specifics without having seen the draft implementing bill, according to a Senate aide.
It is also unlikely that the draft implementing bill will be sent to Congress very soon because it would likely linger under the current circumstances, sources said. So far, the draft implementing bill has not been discussed with Republican or Democratic staff members of the House Ways & Means Committee, which will likely take more than the 10 days it took to work through the draft of the Australia FTA, possibly several weeks, according to an informed source.
Pro-CAFTA lobbyists say there is no specific whip count by the Republican leadership that would give a clear indication of the House votes, but say they have been able to make some headway in lining up support for the agreement. An opponent of the DR-CAFTA also acknowledged that the supporters have been able to narrow the vote gap to about 30 to 35 votes from 30 to 40, but insisted that they still face an uphill battle.
Supporters say they have made some headway with Hispanic Caucus members and members of the Illinois delegation where businesses such as candy makers have long sought increased sugar imports, supporters said. Similar opposition to the U.S. sugar program, which restricts imports and domestic supply, can be found in Pennsylvania, they said.
However, the tide so far has not turned in favor of DR-CAFTA supporters, one opponent said. If more than 25 Republicans remain opposed to DR-CAFTA, supporters will have a problem in getting it passed, he said. If supporters are able to attract more than 15 Democrats, then opponents have a problem, he said.
So far, few Democrats have declared they will support DR-CAFTA, and at this moment, there is no organized whipping effort among Democrats. But lobbyists supporting DR-CAFTA have approached staff for Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) to get him to reach out to members of the New Democrats and the Black Caucus to find out what they would need to see in order to vote for the agreement.
Some pro-CAFTA sources insist that Jefferson is considering taking on such role to attract more votes, but a spokeswoman for Jefferson said on April 28 that this is not the case. Jefferson is not taking on a leadership role on DR-CAFTA, and has not initiated any conversation with members to persuade them to vote for the agreement, she said. He does not plan to in the future, and does not intend to whip the issue for Democratic members in terms of support, she said.
Jefferson announced his support for the deal simply on the amount of support that the DR-CAFTA has in his district, she said.
In a related development, Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) has indicated he wants to be "pro-active" on DR-CAFTA and that could mean he would start whipping Democrats in favor of the agreement, a U.S. trade official said.
In a related development, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) late last week acknowledged that "a lot of" Republican members have difficulties voting for DR-CAFTA over sugar, other agriculture interests and textiles, and that it is hard to offset these votes because the support on the Democratic side has shrunk. He said that a number of Republican members from Michigan oppose the DR-CAFTA over the issue of sugar beets.
Separately, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) was seeking the support of House members this week for a letter demanding that a Treasury report on currency identify China as a manipulator of its currencies with whom the U.S. government would have to engage in negotiations to change that practice. He is among the Republican members of the Michigan delegation that have raised China issues with DR-CAFTA lobbyists, sources said. Similarly, Rep Dave Camp (R-MI) used the April 21 Ways and Means DR-CAFTA hearing to raise complaints about administration enforcement of existing trade agreements, particularly with regards to Chinese intellectual property violations and unfair pricing
In an April 29 panel organized by the Washington International Trade Association, former member of Congress Cal Dooley predicted that the DR-CAFTA will pass by a two-vote margin of 217-215, while Scott Miller of Procter and Gamble predicted a two-vote victory of 214-212, which he said would include carefully managed absences by some members.DR-CAFTA opponents this week planned to unveil a House counterpart to the CAFTA Action Caucus launched by Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) at the end of March. The new House caucus will likely be led by Sharrod Brown (D-OH) and Virgil Goode (R-VA).
In the meantime, the Senate Caucus has attracted new members with Sens. Larry Craig (R-ID), Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Mark Dayton (D-MN), according to a Dorgan spokesman. Dorgan told Inside U.S. Trade in an April 28 interview that he expects more members to join once the DR-CAFTA comes closer to a floor vote, and that their opposition is based on broader complaints than the agreement's sugar provisions.
Members fight the battles that are in front of them, and right now there are huge battles facing senators other than DR-CAFTA, he said. The most important is the confrontation over the Bush Administration's judicial nominees, which could lead the Republican majority to change the filibuster rules, while others are the budget, social security and asbestos legislation, Dorgan said. As a result, it is a "little hard" to get attention now for the CAFTA, he said.
If the White House and the Republican leadership decide they will proceed on altering the filibuster rules, it will be "pretty hard" to get any work on an optional trade bill done, Dorgan said. Democrats would be hard pressed to agree to that, though they will not hold up appropriations, highway bills or anything essential for national defense, he said.
If the leadership does not change the filibuster rules, it is unclear what strategy the Democratic caucus will pursue with respect to DR-CAFTA, he said.
But Dorgan predicted that members will express considerable dissatisfaction over DR-CAFTA, partially because the trade deficit has grown to enormous proportions and job losses have increased. He said in many ways the DR-CAFTA vote is a proxy vote on what he said was the administration's failed trade policy that is evident in the current record trade deficit of $61 billion. A similar point was made by Rep. Phil English (R-PA) earlier this week (see related story).
Separately, the Colorado Farm Bureau last week urged the members of Congress from the state to oppose the DR-CAFTA in what it says was its first derogation over trade from the national American Farm Bureau Federation position. In an April 21 letter, the Colorado state farm bureau acknowledged that the DR-CAFTA will have "significant benefits" for some commodities in the state, but it said that could be offset by "significant negative impacts" if DR-CAFTA were implemented. "Therefore, because of the negative impacts on the Colorado sugar industry, and since CAFTA has pitted commodity producers against each other, Colorado Farm Bureau does not support CAFTA," the letter said.