President Seeks Fast-Track Trade Negotiating Authority.(Brief Article)

Nation's Cities Weekly, July, 2001 by Shrum, Scott

Two of the top trade priorities for the Bush administration are a new general round of trade liberalization in the World Trade Organization and the hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement. In an effort to expand trade and reassure potential trading partners, the administration is seeking fast-track trade negotiating authority from Congress.

Treaties negotiated under fast track authority cannot be amended by Congress, only approved or denied. In essence, fast-track authority would allow Congress to set trade negotiating objectives for the administration, in exchange for an agreement to vote on the result without changes.

Many congressional Democrats are demanding that labor and environmental protections be included in fast-track...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.