In the WTO, the United States has the same voting power as Ecuador. Populists were outraged that their country had been dragooned into a United Nations of world trade. Constitutionalists were appalled. After 1994, however, Clinton's fast-track authority expired, and Congress regained its authority to amend trade treaties. Yet, amazingly, Clinton is again demanding that Congress surrender this right, and conservatives are anxious to accommodate him.
Trade is no longer the stuff of bipartisan consensus.
Trade and sovereignty are the issues on which the politics of America and Europe are being reshaped and conservative parties smashed to pieces. For Congress to yield, in advance, its right to amend trade treaties is to leave the GOP's future in the hands of Clinton and his trade negotiators. Bill Clinton is putting a new label on the political rat poison he wants Republicans to swallow. Indeed, he has to. Ross Perot among them.