By The
Associated Press
Edited by Deb McAdams
News Digest
Friday, December 2,1994
Page 2
Senate passes historic trade agreement
WASHINGTON — The Senate
overwhelmingly approved a historic
124-nation, tariff-slashing trade
agreement Thursday night, bringing
to a close a strife-filled 103rd Con
gress with a rare note of bipartisan
unity. : . LvV A A
President Clinton called the vote
a “victory for America” and said he
hopes it is a harbinger of cooperation
between his administration and Re
publicans who soon will assume con
trol of Congress. Final congressional
approval to the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) came
on a 76-24 vote in the Senate. The
House on Tuesday had approved the
accord, the most sweeping rewrite of
global trading rules in four decades.
Congressional leaders, Democrats
and Republicans alike, joined Clinton
at a victory celebration on the South
Lawn of the White House.
“Let’s make the GATT vote the
first vote of a new era of cooperation,”
said Clinton. “America’s best days
are ahead of us.”
The president said the GATT
agreement would increase world
trade, bringing new, high-wage jobs
to the United States.
Departing Senate Democratic
Leader George Mitchell said the vote
sends a signal to the world that
America and its workers remain the
world’s leaders. “We do not fear com
petition; we welcome it. We do not
shrink from the future; we welcome
that,” Mitchell said.
Republican Leader Sen. Bob Dole,
who will assume Mitchell’s post as
majority leader in January, said the
vote was an example of how biparti
sanship can work.
“This was not about some new
world order,” Dole said.
“This was about jobs and oppor
tunities for Americans. It was all
about trade. All about the future. All
about America. And all about our
place in the world.”
Just minutes before the final vote,
the Senate voted 68-32 to waive its
own budget rules and remove the last
procedure standing in the way of
GATT’s passage. Sixty votes were
needed for the crucial budget waiver.
On it, the accord was supported by
31 Republicans and 37 Democrats
and was opposed by 15 Republicans
and 17 Democrats.
Clinton, badly in need of a con
gressional victory to lift his battered
fortunes following the November
elections, had worked throughout the
day to convince wavering lawmakers
to support the deal.
Opponents charged that the ap
proval of the global trade agreement
was a serious setback to American
workers and could cause middle class
voters to turn against both parties.
“I think today’s vote will mark the
turning point in the breakup of the
two-party system by new political
forces soon to be unleashed,” con
sumer activist Ralph Nader said.
“This vote has to be seen as a re
pudiation of the majority of the
American people and a victory for
global corporations.”
The 124-nation trade agreement
cuts tariffs by an average of 38 per
cent worldwide, and for the first time
extends GATT rules to such new
areas as reduction of trade-distorting
agriculture subsidies, lowering trade
barriers in service industries, such as
banking and clamping down on copy
right piracy.
It also creates a more powerful
World Trade Organization to referee
trade disputes and eliminates the one
country veto that a losing nation
could use to block an adverse ruling.
Supporters said the agreement, by
cutting the border taxes Americans
have to pay while at the same time
lowering barriers U.S. businesses and
farmers face overseas, would provide
a tremendous boost to the U.S.
economy.
The Clinton administration esti
mated this would create a half-mil
lion new jobs and mean an annual
increase of $150 billion in U.S. eco
nomic growth a decade from now,
when the deal is fully implemented.
That extra growth would put $1,700
more a year in the pockets of the av
erage family, the administration said.
However, opponents charged that
the WTO represented a dangerous
encroachment on U.S. sovereignty.
They said that seven previous GATT
negotiating rounds to lower trade
barriers have not cured America’s
chronic trade deficit nor stopped the
hemorrhage of manufacturing jobs
overseas. They warned that in textiles
alone, one of America’s most pro
tected industries, 1 million jobs could
be lost.
Sen. Ernest Hollings, a Democrat
from South Carolina, a leading tex
tile state, said during floor debate.
“The reality is that we are in decline.
Everybody knows that.”
The administration was anxious
for a healthy bipartisan victory mar
gin as a way to show that a Demo
cratic White House will be able to
work next year with the first Repub
lican-controlled Congress in four de
cades.
Rwanda strives, rebels thrive
KIGALI, Rwanda—Tons of food
and donated goods from around the
world are resupplying and fattening
Rwanda’s exiled, genocidal Hutu re
gime as it plots a bloody return to
power.
The new government, meanwhile,
is bankrupt and powerless.
“I’m stumped. And I think it’s just
scandalous,” said Chris Hennemeyer
of Catholic Relief Services. “Either
there is a massive conspiracy to keep
Rwanda down ... or the world com
munity is incredibly incompetent.”
Whatever the intent, international
actions since the holocaust began in
this tiny Central African nation have
consistently helped the killers:
— When Rwanda’s president, a
Hutu, was killed in a suspicious plane
crash April 6 and order collapsed, the
United Nations withdrew most of its
troops. That freed the Hutu army and
its affiliated militias to butcher an
estimated 500,000 people, mostly eth
nic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
— In July, the Tutsi-led rebels of
the Rwandan Patriotic Front toppled
the remnants of the Hutu-dominated
government, which promptly urged
more than a million countrymen to
flee with it into neighboring Zaire.
In the ensuing four months, relief
groups have spent hundreds of mil
lions of dollars to feed, shelter and
care for the survivors and perpetra
tors of the bloodletting.
— Of the $1.5 billion spent so far
on the Rwanda crisis, $850 million
has gone to help refugees outside the
borders. The millions earmarked for
rebuilding in Rwanda are controlled
by the aid organizations for chosen
programs; Rwanda’s bankrupt gov
ernment is powerless to help itself.
Navy retains lesbian officer
SAN FRANCISCO — In a sur
prising decision, a Navy tribunal de
cided Thursday that Lt. Zoe
Dunning’s career in the Reserves
should not end with the statement “I
am a lesbian.”
A board of inquiry unanimously
ruled that Dunning had proven she
would not engage in homosexual acts,
in line with the military’s “don’t ask,
don’t tell” policy.“The board of in
quiry recommends retention in the
Navalservice,” said Capt. Thomas
Berns, senior member of the board.
Dunning stood while the findings
were being read, her hands clenched.
Afterward, she smiled briefly as she
clasped lawyer Greg Bonfiglio’s
hands.
Dunning’s attorneys had main
tained that when she made the state
ment “I am a lesbian” at a January
1993 rally, she was not broadcasting
her intentions to practice homosexu
ality, but merely indicating her sexual
orientation.
“She felt that to continue to hide
who she was would be a lie,”
Bonflglio said.
He had warned the board that dis
charging Dunning would mean
“needlessly destroying the career of
a dedicated, distinguished officer.”
Dunning, 31, has been working
one weekend a month as a supply of
ficer at the Naval Aviation Depot in
Alameda.
Co-workers and supervisors testi
fied Wednesday she is an excellent
officer whose discharge would be the
Navy ’s loss. They said her sexual ori
entation, and the controversy sur
rounding it, has not affected unit co
hesion.
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Nebraska senators
disagree on GATT
OMAHA — Nebraska’s two
Democratic senators split as the
U.S. Senate Thursday night ap
proved a 124-nation, tariff-slash
ing trade pact to close the 103rd
Congress.
“As the largest but already the
most open economy in the world,
the United States has something
to lose but certainly much to gain
as we reduce our trade barriers still
further...” Kerrey said on the Sen
ate floor. In turn, the United States
secures from other GATT nations
“the obligation to provide even
greater access to their markets.”
Kerrey also said the United
States would see more employ
ment, income and tax revenue
under the GATT.
The agreement would slash tar
iffs, or border taxes, by an aver
age of 38 percent worldwide on
thousands of food and manufac
tured products. The Clinton ad
ministration has said this repre
sents the largest global tax cut in
history, a reduction in customs
duties of $744 billion.
A permanent World Trade Or
ganization would enforce rulings
in trade disputes.
In agriculture, the GATT would
reduce government supports to
farmers that currently cost taxpay
ers in wealthy countries an esti
mated $160 billion a year. Sup
porters say U.S. farmers will find
their products more competitive
on overseas markets.
Exon said he isn’t so sure.
“While many farm groups sup
port passage of this agreement, it
seems we have been down this
road before,” he said. “The prom
ise of a pot of gold for American
farmers in foreign markets has
been a promise unfulfilled.”
Exon also criticized the
agreement’s ban on exports made
“Thepromise of a pot
ofgold for American
farmers in foreign
markets has been a
promise unfulfilled. ”
■
JIM EXON
Senator, D.-Neb.
by prison labor while allowing
exports of goods made by children
who work for 50 cents per hour.
“Now that’s something that we
all can be proud of. We protect
criminals but not the kids,” Exon
said on the Senate floor.
Exon said he didn’t like the
structure of the world trade orga
nization.
He cited a hypothetical dispute
between the United States and
Bangladesh that would go to a
three-nation panel for a binding
decision.
Exon said such situations
would “stack the deck” against the
United States “since most coun
tries want unlimited access to the
coveted U.S. market.”
But Kerrey said there needed to
be “some teeth” in the enforcement
of settling international trade dis
putes. He also said he wasn’t com
pletely happy with the pact.
“For example, nothing in the
agreement prompts the United
States and its trading partners to
cooperate in a deliberate way to
develop the environmental and
labor standards that we have” to
avoid environmental degradation
and worker exploitation, he said.
