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House Republicans see late July CAFTA approval

Posted on: Thursday, 14 July 2005, 12:28 CDT

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)

Source: REUTERS

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