DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270032

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B12  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 
                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

TRADE NEGOTIATIONS GIVE CLINTON FAST TRACK

President Clinton is seeking fast track authority to negotiate a new round of trade deals. He should get it.

Fast track doesn't mean that any deal negotiated by the Clinton administration will automatically become law. Far from it. It does mean that any deal the administration puts before Congress would face a single up or down vote. It couldn't be nibbled to death by amendments.

This same formula was used to pass earlier trade agreements and is similar to the base-closing process that also prevents Congress from piecemealing a complicated agreement to extinction.

There's no question that such all-or-nothing votes are useful in cases where dozens of individual legislators are tempted to act for special interests.

Some in Congress oppose fast track not for that reason but because they oppose liberalized trade in principle and will fight anything they see as tending in that direction.

However, in the absence of specific proposals, general views on the wisdom or folly of ``free trade'' look more like faith than the facts talking.

The fight over NAFTA was bitter, with proponents promising a golden dawn and opponents dreading an economic dark night of the soul. So far, the evidence suggests that neither of these extreme views was justified. Utopia hasn't arrived, but neither has the prophesied giant sucking sound been heard in the land. Mexico and Canada have acquired some business at the expense of American companies, but American firms have also done more business in those markets.

This time around, the Clinton administration hopes to extend free trade to Chile - arguably the most robust market economy in Latin America - and to move faster to open markets elsewhere.

The president argues with some justice that future prosperity in a global economy requires free-trade agreements with nations prepared to play fair. And in NAFTA and tough bilateral negotiations with Japan and other Asian nations, Clinton and his trade team can claim successes. The results with China and in attempts to protect intellectual property have been mixed.

There is a protectionist wing to the Democratic Party and a huge interest group - organized labor - that Clinton risks offending by pursuing more of the same. His willingness to proceed in the teeth of such opposition speaks well of a president often accused of an unwillingness to take hard stands.

Ultimately, Clinton is right that the prosperity of the United States is tied to trade. By pursuing free trade in tough-minded negotiations earlier, Clinton has earned fast track authority in the latest round of negotiations.

That isn't the same as a rubber stamp. Congress retains the right to accept or reject the ultimate fruits of the negotiation process. But by granting fast track, Congress can deny its obstructionist members the power to inflict the death of a thousand cuts on any deal and prevent the panderers among its ranks from compromising any deal in an attempt to please special interests.

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