President Bush loses trade promotion authority

President Bush loses trade promotion authority President Bush lost his trade promotion authority on Saturday with little effort made in Congress to keep it going.
   According to various news reports, Democrats on Capitol Hill are unlikely to restore this authority to President Bush before his second and last term is up in 2008. Only President Clinton lost this authority since it was established in 1975.
   TPA allows the administration to “fast track” free trade initiatives with other countries. Many Democratic lawmakers believe the Bush administration has not done enough to protect American workers from unfair overseas trade practices.
   Bush administration officials called the discontinuation of TPA a big mistake.
   “American workers cannot afford for us to hang up a ‘Closed for Business’ sign,” said U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab in a statement. “The United States must be in the game and not on the sidelines as other nations negotiate deals that disadvantage our businesses, farmers, ranchers and service providers.”
   Schwab said that at least 100 regional trade agreements have entered into force since 2002, and more than 100 are under negotiation.
   U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns noted substantial benefits to agricultural commodity shippers from recent trade agreements reached by the United States. “Under trade promotion authority, we completed more than a dozen bilateral free trade agreements valuing $27 billion in agricultural exports — equivalent to over a third of our total export value in 2006,” he said.
   Overall, since TPA was last authorized in 2002, U.S. agricultural exports have increased from $53.1 billion to $68.7 billion in 2006, Johanns said.