This is about the Congress and the President of the United States uniting to face formidable challenges from foreign trading partners and, using fast track rules of consultation and consideration as guidelines, working together to pursue enormous opportunities. This is about the long-term viability of an essential arrangement between two branches of our government that will let the United States negotiate successfully on trade as we enter the 21 st century. Congress as a body should be careful not to give the executive branch unusual powers beyond the traditional fast track procedures for trade matters. To allow the President to negotiate environmental and labor agreements not directly related to trade under fast track rules would be an expansion of presidential authority. If you are going to mandate some kind of negotiations, you should be prepared for the possibility it will be exercised by a president with whose policies you disagree.
Caution is in order.
There is room in this bill for specificity, but if there is no flexibility, America will find itself at a disadvantage, whether it involves talks about agriculture, information services, or free trade with Latin America. We will not have the leverage we need because we will have told our negotiators for the next eight years to pursue only the narrowest of objectives that Congress could foresee in 1997. This is wrong. Ask Bill Brock, Robert Strauss, Carla Hills, Mickey Kantor, or Charlene Barshefsky if this is the best way to negotiate. There are many approaches for improving international industrial relations, labor rights, pollution prevention, and resource conservation that can and are being pursued productively by the United States.