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trade treaties for an up-or-down, no-amendments vote in Congress. The fast-track

approach to trade has yielded impressive fruit. Four major trade agreements have been

implemented since 1979 under fast-track authority: the Tokyo Round of GATT in 1979,

the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement in 1988, the North American Free Trade

Agreement with Mexico in 1993, and the Uruguay Round of GATT, signed in 1994.

Each of those agreements lowered tariff and nontariff barriers, opening new

markets for U.S. exporters and raising the living standards of U.S. consumers. The

agreements have locked the gains of free trade into place, making it far less likely that the

major trading nations of the world will slip into a trade war as they did in the 1930s. It is

almost certain that none of those trade-expanding agreements would have been possible

without the fast-track process.

One argument raised against the fast-track process is that it undermines the

constitutional power of Congress. Under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution,

Congress holds the power "to lay and collect ... duties" and "to regulate commerce with

foreign nations." Through fast-track authority, Congress designates the executive branch

as its chief negotiator, with the explicit understanding, written into law, that Congress

will be informed of the progress of negotiations and that any resulting agreement will be

considered under a "closed rule" barring amendments. Once a treaty has been signed by

the president, Congress retains the power to write the "implementing legislation" which

would conform U.S. law to the agreement. Even after the legislation has been written,

Congress retains the ultimate power to vote the trade treaty down.

Executive branch participation in trade policy has evolved from bitter experience.

In 1930, Congress passed the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, the most protectionist

piece of legislation in U.S. history. The Tariff Act of 1930 was the result of legislative

log-rolling, in which members of Congress agreed to support higher tariffs to benefit

industries in other states and districts in exchange for support for tariffs that benefited

their own special interests. The result was one part comical--including a 1,000 percent

tariff on cashew nuts even though the U.S. had no domestic cashew industry8--and nine

parts disaster. Passed in the name of job creation, the bill only plunged the country deeper

into the Great Depression. Other nations retaliated, predictably, by raising their own

tariffs, leading to a drastic fall in global trade.

Congress began to repair the damage of its protectionist binge by passing the

Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. This act granted the president the authority to

negotiate tariff reductions of up to 50 percent with other nations that were willing to

reduce their own tariff barriers. Like fast-track authority, the 1934 trade act shifted

authority from the legislative to the executive branch. Arguably, it granted the president

even more leeway than current fast-track legislation by giving advance approval, within

limits, to negotiated tariff reductions.

Like the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act before it, fast-track authority is based

on the political reality that the chief executive can more effectively represent the nation's

general welfare on trade issues than the legislative branch. Although all presidents,

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