President Bush went to Illinois yesterday, asking for Congressional renewal of his authority (called “Trade Promotion Authority”) to negotiate trade agreements and send them to Congress for an up-or-down vote without amendment. The present TPA expires at the end of June 2007. For those of us who have strong doubts about the ability of members of Congress to take the broad view when considering trade agreements, TPA is a necessary–but not sufficient–condition for the United States to pursue trade liberalization in partnership with other nations, including the ailing Doha round of world trade negotiations and other preferential trade agreements like those underway with South Korea and Malaysia. (This Washington Post article has a good overview of the stakes and politics behind the battle for TPA.)

(Side Note: it was surely no accident that President Bush chose to make his case at the headquarters of a successful exporter [a sterling company Caterpillar may be] rather than, as Grant Aldonas suggests in the Post article, a company that delivers cheap imports to consumers. Mercantalism is alive and well, in case there were any doubts.)

Basically, the bind is this: without TPA, Doha is dead. But many are suggesting that lawmakers will be reluctant to extend TPA if no Doha deal is imminent. Similarly, the new Farm Bill, due for enactment in September, may be an extension of the unsatisfactory 2002 Farm Bill if the Doha round does not exert significant pressure to reform, even though reform of U.S. agricultural policy would go a long way to helping the round succeed.

Don’t look to key members of Congress for their support in unraveling this knot, though. An article at the Delta Farm Press website contains some worrying statements from the new House Agriculture Committee Chair Colin Peterson. The money quote:

There’s pressure on us to change the farm bill because “that’s the only way we can get a trade deal,” said Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat. “Now, I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough of these trade deals. And unless we can get something good out of, I don’t give a darn if we get one.”

Something tells me that Chairman Peterson’s statement was not meant to be a be read as an endorsement of unilateral trade liberalization.