*EPF412 04/11/2002
Text: Treasury's Dam Renews Call for Trade Authority Action
(Senate needs to start TPA work by April 22, he says) (510)

Kenneth Dam, deputy Treasury secretary, has reiterated President Bush's insistence that the Senate begin considering trade promotion authority (TPA), otherwise known as fast track, by April 22.

In an April 11 statement, Dam said the president's April 4 message "was unequivocal."

Under TPA, Congress restricts itself only to approve or reject a negotiated trade agreement, within strict time limits and without amendments. Since the previous grant expired early in 1994, attempts to reauthorize TPA have failed over labor and environmental issues. The House of Representatives passed its version of TPA 215-214 in December.

Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic majority leader, told reporters April 9 that the Senate would not meet the president's schedule but that he did view TPA as one of several "high priorities" for attention soon.

Senate consideration of TPA is expected to take weeks. Daschle said he would move TPA in a package with legislation reauthorizing trade adjustment authority (TAA) training assistance for workers who lose their jobs because of imports.

The package would also reauthorize the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA), which expired in December. The Bush administration has delayed reimposing higher duties on Andean imports until May 16 in anticipation of ATPA reauthorization by Congress.

Even if the Senate passes the trade package, House and Senate members would still have to work out differences in their bills and pass a final version.

Following is the text of Dam's statement:

(begin text)

April 11, 2002

STATEMENT OF DEPUTY TREASURY SECRETARY KENNETH W. DAM
ON THE NEED FOR TRADE PROMOTION AUTHORITY

One week ago, President Bush made a major statement calling on the United States Senate to bring Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to the Senate floor by April 22. This statement may not have gotten all the attention it deserved, with the media spotlight on his decision earlier in the same day to send Secretary Powell to the Middle East. But it was unequivocal.

The President said, "I believe strongly in trade. I believe not only is trade in my nation's interests, I think trade is in the interest of those nations who struggle with poverty, and that desire a route out of poverty." He hailed our recent work to advance the Doha round, and the success of WTO countries represented here in bringing both China and Taiwan into the WTO last year.

He also noted that some 150 preferential trade agreements exist in the world today. The United States is a party to only three of these 150, considerably short of the European Union's 31 or even Mexico's 10. And he expressed our desire to reassert America's leadership on trade.

We view Trade Promotion Authority -- the ability for the executive branch to negotiate the details of trade agreements and then submit them to Congress for approval in a simple up-or-down vote as an essential legislative component of our free trade strategy.

This administration intends to advance free trade worldwide, through every means available.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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