Fair Trade

WASHINGTON -- By a clear majority, the House passed a bill yesterday that would set strict limits on steel imports, as many lawmakers in both parties criticized the Clinton administration for having allowed cheaper foreign steel to flood the U.S. market.The bill's fate in the Senate appears less certain, and President Clinton's senior advisers are recommending a veto. Nevertheless, its advocates proclaimed the legislation a much-needed response to efforts by foreign producers to swamp U.S. ports with under-priced steel.

AS GLOBAL warming treaty talks ended yesterday in Argentina, the 160 nations were divided on the important nTC concept of emissions trading.Essentially, it allows one country to pay another country for its unused "pollution rights" assigned by the international agreement. The pollution is emissions of "greenhouse gases," mostly from burning carbon fuels, into the atmosphere where they trap heat and warm the planet.The United States wants unlimited ability to buy these emission rights to help meet its pledge to reduce warming gases by 7 percent from the 1990 base level.

In a move that could ensure further stability for the port of Baltimore, the president of the International Longshoremen's Association said yesterday that the union would likely seek a one- or two-year extension to its contract rather than renegotiate."

WASHINGTON -- Setting out an "agenda for American action" in the global economy, President Clinton endorsed a tough, free-but-fair trade policy yesterday and called on Japan and Germany to join the U.S. as "engines" of worldwide recovery.For the first time since he became president, Mr. Clinton outlined his international economic policy and rejected protectionism."In the face of all the pressures to do the reverse, we must compete, not retreat," Mr. Clinton said.In an effort to reassure American workers who fear loss of jobs to cheap foreign labor, he said that open and competitive global commerce would "enrich us as a nation," and pointed out that each $1 billion in exports created 20,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Washington. -- In less than a decade, Europe moved from being the largest importer of sugar in the world to become the largest exporter -- thanks to the world's biggest subsidy to its sugar farmers. European policies cost us sales at home and markets abroad, so we retaliated.Over the next decade, Congress granted huge new subsidies to U.S. sugar refineries and sugar growers and imposed strict limits on sugar imports from dozens of poor small nations. The result: much higher U.S. consumer prices, bigger federal deficits, more taxes on families, all in the noble name of ''retaliation.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government's trade agency ruled yesterday that Detroit's automakers had not suffered significant harm from imported Japanese minivans, a verdict that prevents the Commerce Department from proceeding with plans to impose tariffs on the imports.The decision by the independent agency, the International Trade Commission, to reject a highly political case is a landmark in U.S. trade policy.It reflects the presence of a new majority, more skeptical of industry claims, on the little-known body, which has the power to block U.S. industries from receiving Commerce Department protection from imports.

This presidential race might -- and the next almost surely will -- result in election of the first chief executive born after World War II. Couple that with the new world order (demise of the Soviet Union, rise of new economic powers) and you have a matchless opportunity to redefine American purpose. Energetic enterprise is the centerpiece of an energetic nation, so I'll ante my two cents into the redefinition pot: This week and next I'll offer my ideal candidate's platform.1. Help the former Soviet Union (et al.)

Washington.-- In his campaign swing in the Orient, George Bush and his equally whiny entourage represented America as the crybaby of the Western world.The tour got off to a stumbling start in Australia. There Mr. Bush, with many representatives of America's industrial anemia in tow, tried to chant the mantra of ''fair'' rather than free trade, but Aussie farmers drowned him out with complaints about huge U.S. subsidies of wheat exports.The Far East was treated to lectures on ''fair trade'' from an American government that restricts Jamaica to selling 970 gallons of ice cream a year in America, Mexico to 35,292 bras, Poland to 350 tons of alloy tool steel, Haiti (we are protected from that colossus)

BEAUTIFUL Persian cats, two spoiled dogs, a sailboat and each other. ''I guess you could say this is our life,'' says Lillian Davidson, who lives in Perry Hall with her husband, Robert.He caters to the dogs, a dachshund and a Rottweiler, and she owns and shows Persian cats.Sandtraps Snappy Affair is her blue-cream Persian, not yet a year old, who took a second in the blue-cream Persian class at the Chesapeake Cat Show this year. His color is a mottled cream and pale blue-gray.According to breed information, the longhaired Persian cats are called Persians in the United States and Longhairs in England.

Washington. -- Fast track or slippery slope?Congress is ready to put U.S.-Mexico free-trade negotiations on the fast track, but there are fears that the intended treaty will TTC inevitably mean lost jobs for American workers and weaker pollution standards for American industry.The House majority leader, Dick Gephardt, is one of many Democrats who share this concern but are going along with the administration's plea for fast-track authority. Under it, Congress could not amend the resulting trade agreement, but only vote up or down after it is completed.