11th hour deal paves way for trade pact passage
11th hour deal paves way for trade pact passage
By MARILYN GEEWAX, BOB KEMPER
Cox News Service
Thursday, June 30, 2005
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration and key lawmakers struck an 11th hour deal with U.S. sugar producers to shore up congressional support for a controversial trade agreement, senators said Wednesday.
A full Senate vote could come as early as Thursday on the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
The White House believes it now has won the crucial support of many lawmakers from sugar-producing states who previously opposed CAFTA, helping ensure the approval of a free-trade agreement that has been a top priority for President Bush.
With the deal made with the staunchest foes of CAFTA, the Senate Finance Committee approved the trade agreement Wednesday morning. The House Ways and Means Committee is expected to approve the trade agreement Thursday.
The Senate began debate on CAFTA Wednesday night, and may follow through with a vote the next day.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, announced the deal with the sugar industry just hours before the debate was to start. He is among the lawmakers who previously had opposed CAFTA, but now will support it.
"The CAFTA agreement (had) a provision in it that violates the farm bill and, frankly, I was worried about the administration invading the jurisdiction of Congress relative to an agriculture issue that is in the jurisdiction of Congress," Chambliss said.
Chambliss helped strike a deal with the sugar industry by bringing industry officials together with administration officials eager to win approval of the trade agreement.
That deal would ensure that the sugar industry would not lose its federal subsidies as a result of additional sugar being imported to the United States under CAFTA.
The deal also protects the politically powerful sugar industry from any sugar imports under the previously approved North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and any other trade agreements the Bush administration negotiates until 2007. That’s when the current farm bill, which dictates price supports for sugar and other crops, expires.
Under the deal, the federal government would conduct a study to determine whether it is economically feasible to convert sugar to Ethanol. A pilot program can also be established to convert some of the imported sugar to Ethanol.
While sugar state lawmakers are beginning to sign on to CAFTA, the sugar industry still refuses to embrace the trade agreement, saying Wednesday’s deal with the White House provides no long-term stability for sugar producers.
"There is no deal that we have accepted," said Phillip Hayes, spokesman for the American Sugar Alliance. "We’re going to continue to encourage every sugar lawmaker to oppose the CAFTA. We think what was proposed is a bad deal. It’s a short-term solution to a long-term problem."
However, lawmakers representing sugar producing states have already signed on to support it.
"I would tell my friends (from sugar states) that this is your insurance," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who negotiated with the industry and administration.
CAFTA would end most tariffs on goods traded among the United States and the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. It also would allow a 50 percent increase in sugar imports into the U.S., phased in over 15 years.
Though sugar beet producers and processors in the South and West were the toughest opponents lining up against NAFTA, U.S. labor groups and environmentalists also oppose the pact, saying its provisions on labor rights and environmental regulations are weak.
But President Bush and leaders of the other six countries say CAFTA will boost the economies of all participants and strengthen democracies in Central America.
"We are very happy to see this issue gaining support," said Jose Guillerma Castillo, the ambassador of Guatemala. "This is heading in the right direction."
After the vote, Castillo stood outside of the Senate Finance Committee hearing room to share broad smiles with elated CAFTA supporters.
"We’re going to win," said William Morley, managing director of MWW Group, which represents companies supporting CAFTA. Democrats on the committee did not demand a recorded vote because they realized they would lose by a wider margin than many had expected, he said.
Only Sen. Craig Thomas, a Wyoming Republican whose state has a large sugar beet industry, asked that his vote be recorded as a "no."
CAFTA opponents say they are gearing up for battle after Congress returns from its July 4th break. "We will hold daily vigils until the vote happens," said Tom Ricker, policy coordinator for the Quixote Center, a faith-based group concerned with social justice in Central America.
Ricker said the Senate probably will pass CAFTA, but predicted the House will reject it. In that chamber, "they still don’t have the votes," he said.
But Ricker conceded Bush administration officials may yet win over some fence-sitting lawmakers by offering various concessions. "They are trying to cut individual deals to get it over the top," he said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who says CAFTA is crucial to promoting capitalism and democracy in this hemisphere, had spurred his committee to give the pact preliminary approval during informal consideration earlier this month.
CAFTA proponents include: makers of cheeses, snacks, pork products and other processed foods; grain farmers; pharmaceutical companies; software developers; computer-chip manufacturers and textile makers who sell yarn and fabric to Central Americans.
Passage of CAFTA would be a major step toward the administration’s long-term goal of creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement, which would turn 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere into a single trading zone involving some 800 million people.
