Copyright 2000 The National Journal, Inc.
The National Journal
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April 22, 2000
SECTION: CONGRESS; Pg. 1282; Vol. 32, No. 17
LENGTH: 1427 words
HEADLINE:
Gephardt's Choice
BYLINE: Richard E. Cohen
BODY:
During his five years as House
Minority Leader, Richard A.
Gephardt, D-Mo., has often distanced himself
from President
Clinton on issues such as international trade, the budget,
welfare reform, and-for a short while-the future of Clinton's
scandal-tinged presidency. Gephardt has not always prevailed on
the
House floor, but he has usually been more attuned to his
colleagues' views
than has the "Third Way" President.
This week,
Gephardt significantly increased this distance
by firmly denouncing
Clinton's proposal to grant permanent normal
trade relations status to
China. And in doing so, Gephardt has
increased the pressure on Vice
President Al Gore to reveal more
about his position.
Gore finds himself torn between rival Democratic factions
in this
debate. Although he rhetorically supports PNTR for China,
the last major legislative initiative of Clinton's presidency,
Gore has
left doubts about his true commitment to lobby
energetically for its
passage. "The key question now is whether
Gore will be active" in urging
support for the initiative, said a
well-placed House Democratic aide. "It
will not look presidential
for Gore to be seen as pandering to the unions."
If Gore actively campaigns for the passage of China
PNTR
legislation, undecided House Democrats will face the
difficult
choice of either supporting their would-be Speaker, who contends
that they are on the verge of regaining the House majority in
November's
election, or supporting their presumptive presidential
nominee. If Gore is
unwilling to stick his neck out for the
controversial measure, wavering
lawmakers may be less inclined to
vote for it.
For his part, Gephardt-who seriously weighed challenging
Gore in the
Democratic presidential primary-is expected to try to
persuade his
colleagues to vote no on the China PNTR proposal,
which the
House is slated to consider during the week of May 22.
"He will explain to
(other House members) why he's voting"
against the measure, said Steve
Elmendorf, Gephardt's veteran
chief of staff, in an interview. "He will not
whip the votes....
But we want to win."
Gephardt's decision to join organized labor and other
groups in
opposing China PNTR was no real surprise to those on
either
side of the debate. He made his decision official during
an April 19 speech
in St. Louis in which he said the proposal
"surrenders all leverage we hold
in our trading relationship to
the Chinese government and renders the United
States powerless to
protect our values and interests."
With a solid majority of House Democrats virtually
certain to vote
against the China trade legislation, Gephardt's
announcement shifts
attention to the few dozen who say they
remain undecided. (In the Senate,
passage of PNTR is expected.)
High on the list of undecided
House Democrats are several who sit
on the Ways and Means Committee, which
has jurisdiction over the
issue.
For instance,
the typically loquacious Rep. Charles B.
Rangel of New York, the committee's
ranking Democratic member,
usually supports expanding international trade,
but he has kept
his cards unusually close to his vest on the China
legislation.
According to Democratic sources, Rangel is closely monitoring
Gore's commitment, both public and private, and he will determine
how he
will vote based on whether Gore or Gephardt makes the
stronger pitch.
Still, the ultimate outcome may depend at least as
much
on whether agreement can be reached in coming weeks on separate
legislative proposals intended to step up pressure on China to
improve
its human rights and environmental records. Rep. Sander
M. Levin of
Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Ways and Means
Trade Subcommittee, has
been attempting to craft compromise
language on monitoring the Chinese
government's progress in these
areas. His goal is to satisfy Democrats who
are dubious about
granting PNTR to China without offending
strong supporters, most
of whom are Republicans.
In an interview on April 17, Levin sent a clear warning
that Clinton
must move toward the middle. "The White House needs
to take the lead with us
and with Republicans to build a plan of
action," he said. "I want them
increasingly involved in a
leadership position."
Other undecided members are looking for more-targeted
steps on trade.
Rep. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, another Ways
and Means Democrat, said that
when Gore phoned him recently to
ask how to win his support for China
PNTR, he responded by
discussing his strong desire for
tightening federal anti-dumping
restrictions on other nations.
Cardin has been pushing this legislative proposal
for
months to help the steel industry, a major employer in his
district,
although the reforms would affect various industries
and are not focused
specifically on Chinese imports. "The Vice
President doesn't call me every
day," Cardin said. "I interpreted
his phone call as a significant interest."
Rangel, for his part, has made clear his strong
desire
for final action on a measure he has been pushing for several
years to open trade opportunities with Africa. So it was surely
no
coincidence that on the eve of the Easter recess, Rangel won
key progress
from House and Senate GOP leaders in resolving
differences between the
versions passed by each chamber. "That
was an important signal" for the
China measure, Cardin said.
Where do these
conflicting and sometimes ambiguous
signals from Democrats leave House
Republicans? Even before
Gephardt delivered his speech, several senior House
Republicans
attacked him. "The would-be Speaker of the House is too tied to
big labor and trial lawyers to recognize the needs of the new
economy,"
said Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas.
Some
Republican proponents of China PNTR called it
cynical for
Gephardt to sow doubts for months about his position
on the bill while
raising hefty campaign funds from business
groups, such as the high-tech
industry-most of whose leaders
support the legislation.
Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, warned
Clinton to
resist making side deals on "other China-related
legislation." Still, Trade
Subcommittee Chairman Philip M. Crane,
R-Ill., said in an interview that
while he had not seen the
specifics of Levin's proposal, "some things I've
heard do not
sound bad."
In His Words
The following are excerpts
from the April 19 speech by House
Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt at
Webster University in St.
Louis, Mo., in which he announced his opposition
to President
Clinton's proposal to grant permanent normal trade relations
status to China:
"This debate for me has never
just been about economics.
It's been about something much larger than
that.... The core
value that defines us as a nation isn't the sheer value of
our
national wealth. It's about our national values of human freedom
and
liberty....
I am not a protectionist, nor am I a
free-trader. I seek
an approach to trade that dispenses with outdated
theories and
addresses the reality of today's competition.... I believe that
human rights, worker rights, and sustainable development must be
at the
core of U.S. trade policy....
I generally applauded
the Clinton Administration's
efforts in negotiating a (World Trade
Organization) agreement
with China. I believed that bringing China into the
rules-based
regime of the WTO could assist U.S. efforts to open the closed
Chinese market to U.S. exports. But I never agreed with the
proposition
that supporting China's admission to WTO meant
surrendering our ability to
influence China's behavior....
Since, in the end,
efforts to forge a new consensus on
this issue were unsuccessful, I am
announcing my opposition to
PNTR for China this year.
America should not trust the Chinese
government to make progress on its own
and unilaterally surrender
our nation's ability to influence Chinese policy
through trade.
At the end of the day, maintaining the annual trade review
remains the best way to keep the pressure on the Chinese
government to
reform its human rights policies....
In the long
run, Americans and Chinese alike will be
better off when China joins under
the right terms-not with a
carte blanche handed to it by the world
community."
LOAD-DATE: April 25, 2000
