For the Clinton Administration, doing without fast-track authority will mean a tougher time in trade negotiations.
Hence Mr Clinton's attempt last year to win fast-track authority on the Republicans' terms.
ECONOMIST: A survey of world trade: Slow road to fast-track | The
Leaders there surely will want to hear what Clinton says about the chances for renewed fast-track authority.
Fast-track authority is one of the most important devices in the U.S.'s toolkit for establishing trade agreements.
He's the one who gave the President authority to, fast-track authority to put together these trade deals.
If steel barriers are a pawn being used to play for the real prize, presidential fast-track authority, we support you--nervously.
Fast-track authority gives the president unbridled power to negotiate trade deals, which Congress then votes up or down but cannot amend.
And, running the risk of alienating fellow Democrats, Clinton will call anew for so-called fast-track authority to negotiate international trade deals.
In November, it even took a step backwards by refusing to grant the president fast-track authority to negotiate new trade agreements.
Given the rude health of the American economy over the past few years, the administration's failure to win fast-track authority seems remarkable.
ECONOMIST: A survey of world trade: Slow road to fast-track | The
His officials have at times warned Congress that, if it does not give him fast-track authority, European rivals will grab a rising share of the Latin American market.
That said, both NAM and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce want to see the Doha talks resumed, and they're pushing hard for a renewal of the president's fast-track authority.
"Fast-track authority is a tool that has been given by Democratic congresses to Republican presidents, and presidents indeed of both parties for more than 20 years now, " Clinton said.
If the deal is not completed by Saturday, it will not be eligible for consideration under the president's fast-track authority to negotiate trade agreements, which expires at the end of June.
And though Latin Americans are sceptical of negotiating with a president who lacks fast-track authority, it is, after all, at the end, not the start, of talks that that authority is required.
An agreement had to be reached by midnigh U.S. time on April 1 in order to be considered for fast-track approval by the U.S. Congress, the required 90 days before the current fast-track authority expires.
But oddly, the expiration of Bush's fast-track authority is not as damaging as it might seem at first--mainly because the administration has done just about all it can do on free trade deals for now.
President Bill Clinton plans to meet with economic and political advisors this afternoon to discuss a revised administration plan to push for House passage of legislation granting the president fast-track authority to negotiate free trade deals.
CNN: AllPolitics - Clinton Keeps Pushing For 'Fast Track' Authority
The Bush administration has four free trade agreements pending in Congress right now, and it is not likely to send any more to the Hill because lawmakers did not renew the president's fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals.
Republicans blocked the use of scientific sampling in the 2000 census, and the president managed to make some Democrats angry, too, by his willingness to trade away some census language in an attempt to win approval for fast-track authority.
"And what we need to do is to sort of unpack the politics and the emotion and the substance and try to go back and put this together in a way that allows us to have a big bipartisan majority in the House for a constructive fast-track authority that enables us to move forward on all these fronts, " Clinton said.
Every American president since 1974 -- Democrat and Republican alike -- has had the authority to negotiate new trade agreements called fast-track negotiating authority, which permits the agreements to be presented in a package to the Congress to be approved -- up or down.
American farmers, keen to export, have been lobbying for a renewal of fast-track negotiating authority.
This explains why Mr Clinton never made a convincing case for fast-track trade-negotiating authority, which Congress consequently blocked.
If Clinton gets his way, fast-track trade authority legislation will be back, too.
Also, it would have secured by now the fast-track negotiating authority so essential to the viability of future free-trade initiatives.
Although nobody yet talks of it publicly, one popular revised deadline is 2007, the year that Mr Bush's fast-track negotiating authority expires.
That is because George Bush's fast-track negotiating authority which limits the ability of America's Congress to unravel any trade agreement runs out in July 2007.
That ominous trend was underscored last week when protectionist lawmakers easily denied President Bill Clinton's request for renewed "fast-track" authority to negotiate trade deals.
Congress should renew the President's "fast-track" authority to negotiate trade agreements.
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