Bush's Hispanic Pitch Slow To Build Capitol Hill Support For The CAFTA

By Martin Vaughan, National Journal

President Bush told Hispanic business leaders last week to press Congress for passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, drawing applause from the group. But support for the trade pact among members of Congress who are Hispanic or who represent large Hispanic constituencies has been slow to materialize.
Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., who has been leading opposition to the pact, said in an interview Tuesday that the reluctance of Hispanic Caucus members like Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, to endorse the deal is evidence that CAFTA faces difficult political hurdles.
"He should be a natural," Becerra said. Ortiz's Brownsville district would benefit economically from increased trade to and from Central America.
Becerra himself said the large segment of Salvadoran and other Central American immigrants in his Los Angeles district initially made him hesitate to reject the deal. "This is not one of those that I wanted to make my first case of voting against a [free trade agreement]," he said.
With one exception -- freshman Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas -- Becerra and other Democratic CAFTA opponents have been able to keep Hispanic Democrats from publicly endorsing the deal, even as a number of business and social Hispanic organizations are organizing to drum up support for the deal.
One such group -- the Hispanic Alliance for Free Trade -- has recruited more than 120 members, from local chambers of commerce in California, Texas and Florida to organizations with a national profile like the Council of the Americas.
Now that the grassroots network is coming into place, the group will turn its focus toward lobbying Capitol Hill for CAFTA passage, said Anne Alonzo, a senior vice president at the National Foreign Trade Council who is helping to coordinate the Alliance.
"The Hispanic community is a sleeping giant. The more organized and focused we become, the more of a force we will be," Alonzo said.
Alonzo also noted that prominent Hispanic leaders like former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and former La Raza President Raul Yzaguirre have backed the deal.
CAFTA proponents are targeting Texas Democrats like Ortiz and Rep. Silvestre Reyes, in the hope that their border districts and past support for free trade agreements will translate into support for the CAFTA. Commerce Secretary Gutierrez will travel to Texas May 11 to join the Alliance in touting the pact.
CAFTA supporters stress that the importance of Hispanic Democrats to CAFTA's potential success in the House should not be overstated.
While a handful of votes are in play, the majority of members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus -- especially those from California and New York -- are seen as firm in their opposition to the deal.
But a lack of Hispanic support in Congress could undercut the credibility of the deal, particularly since the trade pact is seen as closely connected to Bush's prestige on outreach to Latin America. "The president is emotionally attached to getting this done," one administration source said.
On the Republican side, Hispanic members like Florida Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen are on the fence because of the impact on the pact on the state's sugar industry.
Because two dozen or more Republicans are expected to vote against the trade agreement, some Democratic votes will be needed for passage. Last week, backers of the pact from high-tech industries said they expected the vote to go down to the wire.
"This will be a one-vote victory, much like [the 2001 vote on trade-negotiating authority], and it's going to be hard slogging," said Ralph Hellman of the Information Technology Industry Council.
Backers had hoped for a Senate vote in May, but that seems unlikely now amid the scramble to find enough votes for passage. Some supporters say they have been caught off guard by growing opposition to the agreement.
CAFTA would lower tariffs and liberalize trade rules with El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.