No props for the Bush administration on the passage of CAFTA. So saith pgl and Brad Delong, pointing to this story:
It was just before midnight on Wednesday when Representative Robin Hayes capitulated [on his opposition to the passage of CAFTA]...
But the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, told him they needed his vote anyway. If he switched from "nay" to "aye," Mr. Hayes recounted, Mr. Hastert promised to push for whatever steps he felt were necessary to restrict imports of Chinese clothing, which has been flooding into the United States in recent months.
As it turned out, the switch by Mr. Hayes was decisive.
If BD and pgl are looking for more ammunition with which to pursue this line of attack, I'll throw in the reminder that, in some circles, commentators were comforting themselves with rationale that the steel tariffs of 2002 were the price of breaking down resistance to the "fast-track" trade authority -- actually renamed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) -- that ultimately led to the successful passage of CAFTA. But even then that authority came with significant strings attached. Here's a blast from the past from Larry Kudlow:
This week, the Senate added the Dayton-Craig amendment to a bill that would have given the White House greater negotiating authority on international trade. But what this amendment does is allow individual members of Congress to veto specific provisions of any presidentially negotiated trade pact. Say good-bye to fast-track trade-promotion authority for the White House.
This is a big backslide on trade for the U.S. And the finger can be pointed directly at the flawed strategy created by White House Senior Adviser Karl Rove and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. Their original idea was to bring protection to the steel industry in order to capture the rustbelt states of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the 2004 election. Also, steel protection (and now lumber protection against Canada) was designed to win votes from House members and Senators who might waver on a new fast-track negotiating package.
But apparently, a lean and mean trade-negotiating bill is not coming. The White House trade strategy has completely unravelled.
The Dayton-Craig Amendment did not wholly survive the House-Senate conference but that does not mean it faded into irrelevance:
On another difficult issue, the Dayton-Craig provisions in the Senate version, conferees dropped the provision but agreed to additional reports and oversight if negotiations might result in possible changes to U.S. trade remedy laws.
That last passage comes from an excellent overview of the legislative process (beginning in the Clinton administration) that led to the passage of the Trade Promotion Authority.
And yes, it was a rather messy sight. And pgl and Brad DeLong are shocked, shocked to find it so.
Look. pgl and Brad may be right in the larger scheme of things. It may indeed be the case that the constellation of compromises required to get CAFTA -- in itself admittedly smaller potatoes -- are more costly than whatever benefits might be derived in terms of the deal itself or whatever it buys in terms of making future progress on the free trade front. But observing that political outcomes involve politics, as odious as that seems, does not a compelling argument make.