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Overseas trade a tug of war for Washington state

By LES BLUMENTHAL | McClatchy Newspapers • Published July 22, 2007

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WASHINGTON - International trade has always been somewhat of a double-edged sword for Washington state.

By some measurements, Washington is the most trade dependant state in the nation, and The Boeing Co. one of the largest, if not the largest,

U.S. exporter. Washington state companies exported $61 billion worth of goods and services in 2006. More than 670,000 of the state's workers have jobs linked to trade.

On the flip side are people like David Dow of Wilkeson, who was laid off from his job at a custom wood working mill two years ago because of foreign competition. Dow was retrained through a federal program and works now as a calibration technician. Washington will receive more than $14 million in federal funding this year to retrain workers like Dow - the third highest amount among all states.

Even as some profit and others see their lives turned upside down, a renewed fight over the nation's trade policies is brewing in Congress.

A law giving the White House free rein to negotiate trade agreements has expired, and the federal program that helped retrain Dow and other workers displaced by foreign competition lapses at the end of September. Some want to link the two in what has been dubbed a "grand bargain," with the White House getting its fast-track negotiating authority renewed and congressional Democrats getting an expanded training program.

"The reality is we could pull out of every trade agreement and it wouldn't change the economic problems lower- and middle-class people face," said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., agreed with Smith that rather than focusing on the downside of globalization, policy makers instead need to ensure U.S. workers are competitive. Both she and Smith say the cornerstone needs to be a major expansion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps retrain workers while providing them with expanded unemployment and heath-care benefits.

"We need TAA on steroids," Cantwell said.

In the coming weeks, Smith will introduce legislation that would triple to $660 million the amount spent annually on the program and also expand it to include service workers who are currently not eligible. About 40 percent of the applications for assistance are rejected by the U.S. Labor Department because they involve ineligible service workers.