House Republicans see late July CAFTA approval

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives
will approve a trade agreement with Central America before the
end of July, Republican leaders predicted on Thursday despite
strong opposition from Democrats to the pact.

“Two weeks from now we will have just voted, successfully
I’m convinced, on the CAFTA trade agreement. That’s going to
take a lot of work over the next several weeks. But we’ll do
that before we leave here in July,” House Majority Whip Roy
Blunt, a Missouri Republican, told reporters.

House Majority Leader Tom Delay, a Texas Republican, said
there still was no exact date for a vote on the U.S.-Central
American Free Trade Agreement, which would tear down trade
barriers among the United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador,
Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

“I think everybody knows we’re going to vote on it before
the August break. A specific date isn’t as important as
understanding we’re going to vote before we leave here,” Delay
said at a press conference to announce a new House caucus
focused on increasing U.S. economic competitiveness.

The Senate approved the U.S.-Central American Free Trade
Agreement, CAFTA, by a vote of 54-45 before lawmakers took a
week-long break for the Fourth of July holiday.

The agreement faces stronger opposition in the House, where
most Democrats oppose it on the grounds that its labor and
environmental provisions are not tough enough.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat,
said Republicans “are in trouble on CAFTA” because “only a
small number of Democrats” will vote for the pact.

“We are the party of free trade …. but this CAFTA goes
beyond the pale. It must be defeated,” she said.

Rep. Leonard Boswell, an Iowa Democrat who voted for recent
free trade agreements with Singapore, Australia, Morocco and
Chile, said on Thursday he would vote against CAFTA.

The Central America countries are too poor to be a
significant market, Boswell said, countering Bush
administration arguments that the pact would be a boon to U.S.
farm and manufactured good exports.

“If you look at the population, half of them make two
dollars a day and the other half not much more. Now where on
earth do you get the optimism that’s going to be a big market?
It just doesn’t make sense,” Boswell said.

The absence of Democratic support for CAFTA means
Republicans will have to supply most of the 218 votes needed
for approval in the House. But many Republican from sugar and
textile-producing states are under pressure from constituents
to vote against it because of feared job losses.

Rep. Adam Putnam, a Florida Republican, said he still had
not decided whether to support CAFTA and hoped more could be
done to address sugar industry concerns. At the same time,
party leaders are urging all Republicans to rally behind
President Bush in support of the pact, he said.

“There is the encouragement that you might expect to help
the president pass a major foreign policy and trade
initiative,” Putnam said. “It’s clearly going to have to be a
Republican lift if this is going to happen at all.”

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Sophie Walker)