FWD: Clinton Pushes for NAFTA Expansion

[MDOLAN <mdolan@citizen.org>]

  In case you missed this:
  
  
  .c The Associated Press
  
        By LAWRENCE L. KNUTSON
        WASHINGTON (AP) - Ready for a new trade fight on Capitol Hill,
  President Clinton assembled a team of experts on Thursday to press for 
  authority to speedily negotiate a hemisphere-wide expansion of the North 
  American Free Trade Agreement.
        The president outlined his strategy for expanding NAFTA beyond
  Canada and Mexico to include other Latin American nations at a
  White House meeting with two dozen Democrats.
        Clinton wants Congress to give him expedited or ``fast-track''
  authority to negotiate free-trade expansion with the results to be voted 
  either up or down without amendment.
        The president said his appointment of Jason S. Berman, chairman
  and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, and
  presidential assistant Victoria Radd to lead the campaign ``makes clear my 
  determination to fight for passage of this important
  legislation.''
        ``I am calling on the Congress to enact fast-track legislation
  so we can continue our aggressive drive to open markets to our
  goods and services and create more high-skilled jobs for the
  American people,'' Clinton said.
        White House press secretary Mike McCurry said Clinton used the
  meeting with members of Congress to lay out ``what he believes is a very 
  strong argument for fast-track authority, centering
  principally on the fact that free trade has been a critical element of our 
  economic strategy, which is producing very significant
  results for the American people.''
        Commerce Secretary William Daley called the White House session
  a good and frank exchange of sometimes opposing views.
        But he said the administration still has not decided how to
  handle the labor and environmental questions that have blocked
  congressional approval of fast-track handling of the issue for more than 
  two years.
        Clinton wants authority to negotiate language to protect worker
  rights and the environment as part of new trade agreements, but
  Republicans are opposed.
        Daley, who led the administration's difficult but successful
  1993 effort to win NAFTA approval, said it makes sense to again
  bring in an outsider like Berman to spearhead the lobbying effort on 
  Capitol Hill.
        ``There is an advantage to bringing in somebody for two to three
  months to focus on an issue that is very difficult,'' Daley said. ``There 
  is a certain single-mindedness that you bring to this
  system.''
        The White House has said that Clinton will send a bill to
  Congress in September requesting the negotiating authority. He
  hopes to have it in place before he goes to Chile in spring 1998 for the 
  second Summit of the Americas. Negotiations are planned
  there to expand NAFTA across the hemisphere.
        Clinton's fall efforts will highlight the divisions in his own
  party. Already House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. and a
  potential presidential rival to Vice President Al Gore, has
  announced opposition to expanding NAFTA in its current form.
        AP-NY-07-24-97 1643EDT
  ***** NOTES from MDOLAN (MDOLAN @ CITIZEN) at 7/27/97 1:11 PM