TRADE-U.S.: Clinton strikes GATT accord with key Republican

• by IPS Correspondents (washington)
• Wednesday, November 23, 1994
• Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, Nov 23 (IPS) - U.S. President Bill Clinton announced Wednesday he has struck a deal with a key Republican leader to gain Congressional passage of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) next week.

Speaking at a hastily-called press conference with Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, Clinton said the accord, reached after two weeks of negotiations, moves ratification of the global trade agreement "one step closer toward gaining broad bipartisan support".

For his part, Dole said he will call on all other Republican senators to approve the legislation when they vote Dec. 1. Other senators said Dole's support assures comfortable passage of the accord next week.

To gain Dole's backing, Clinton agreed to create a special U.S. commission which will monitor decisions by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a global body created by the Uruguay Round, over a five-year period.

The commission, consisting of five retired U.S. appeals court judges, will review all WTO decisions against the United States to determine if they were arbitrary, if they exceeded the WTO's mandate, or if they involved misconduct by WTO judges.

After two such decisions, Congress could pass a joint resolution calling on the U.S. administration in power to renegotiate the process by which these decisions were reached, according to Clinton's Trade Representative, Mickey Kantor.

After the third such decision, Congress could pass another resolution calling on the president in power to withdraw from the WTO. The president could either veto the measure or comply, Kantor said.

"The bottom line is if we get three adverse decisions in a five-year period, based on any one of the criteria, we withdraw from the WTO," said Dole, who had earlier expressed concerns about the new body's ability to infringe U.S. sovereignty.

"That should satisfy the concerns, I think, of (former independent presidential candidate) Ross Perot and all the other (critics) out there," he said.

Dole also said he had secured a promise from Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen to send him a letter offering the administration's support for a debate on reducing the U.S. capital gains tax next year when the Republicans will control Congress.

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