President Bush was braced for a fight over trade. Instead, he’s run into a firestorm. As Congress wrestles with the president’s plan to eliminate trade barriers between the United States and Mexico, a combined assault by labor, environmental and religious groups has put the outcome in doubt. “There’s no doubt that the alliance of these groups…will cause us more trouble,” says Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Julius Katz. “We’ve got more explaining to do on the Mexican issue-and will on every trade issue in the future.”
The unlikely coalition has formed to keep Bush from ramming through the Mexico deal, which is still under negotiation, using a process called fast track. Under this law, the Mexico pact–along with another that would expand the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which sets the ground rules for commerce among 100 member nations–is subject to a straight up-or-down congressional vote. Fast track will expire on May 31, if either house of Congress rejects Bush’s request to extend it. If the anti-fast-track forces succeed, both negotiations could be doomed.
Why such strange bedfellows in the fight against free trade? Environmentalists are concerned that Mexico’s antipollution laws are too lax. Church groups worry about the impact on workers and small farmers on both sides of the border. “The church’s concern is that we look fairly carefully at who benefits and who loses,” says United Methodist official J.D. Hanson. Labor fears that more trade with Mexico will depress U.S. wages and working conditions.
The groups don’t agree on the details. Most of the environmental groups would support a pact that deals with pollution. Some unions would accept a Mexican commitment to ban child labor and improve job safety, while others oppose freer trade under any circumstances. The church groups are uncommitted on most specifics. But they all agree that fast track would curb debate on whatever deal Bush submits. That argument has fund a ready audience. “If the vote were held today in the House,” says a key Ways and Means Committee aide, “fast track would be killed.”
On Capital Hill, the betting is that astute politicking can still split the coalition. Trade officials are consulting privately with groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth. One talking point: if the free-trade pact doesn’t go through, Washington will lose leverage with Mexico on pollution issues. Meanwhile, Mexico’s government has hired a public-relations firm to showcase its environmental progress to reporters and politicians in the United States.
Even if the Mexico pact is approved, the labor-church-environmentalist alliance is likely to remain a player on trade policy. The United Methodists plan to hire a trade specialist, and the environmentalists are eager to maintain their new ties to labor. Ron Blackwell, an economist with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, predicts that the formation of this alliance could turn out to be “the most significant thing about this treaty.” If Bush wants to pursue his vision of a free-trade zone spanning the entire Western Hemisphere, he may be in for a few more tough fights.
