The Making of A Mishmash

Talk about spoiling the broth. Imagine trying to prepare dinner with 199 cooks watching every move. Something like that is happening on Capitol Hill, where a mammoth conference committee is trying to reconcile differences in the omnibus trade bills passed last year by the House and Senate. Under the direction of two Democratic leaders -- Representative Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois and Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas -- the 199 members of the committee, along with 300 or so staffers and 100 briefcase carriers sent over by the White House, have been meeting in 17 subgroups in an all-out effort to get a comprehensive piece of legislation on President Reagan's desk by April. The goal is to pass a bill that will bolster U.S. industry and reduce the trade deficit, which hit a record $171.2 billion in 1987. The danger is that the law will wind up as a potpourri of protectionist measures that serve special interests but hurt consumers and do nothing to boost the competitiveness of U.S. companies.

The mission is urgent because progress in bringing down the trade deficit has been painfully slow. After two months of sharp improvements in the trade gap, the Government reported last week that the deficit had edged up again, from $12.2 billion in December to $12.4 billion in January. On the bright side, the deficit with Japan shrank 17.5%. But the imbalance with other Asian countries, including South Korea and Taiwan, ballooned 18%.

The issue of what to do about trade has long pitted the White House against Congress. The Reagan Administration philosophically embraces free trade, but the President has been under pressure from Capitol Hill to protect U.S. business interests. Rather than give Congress an excuse to pass protectionist legislation, the White House has taken a fairly tough line, bringing 17 actions since 1985 against nations deemed to be engaging in unfair trade practices. The most dramatic censure came last year, when the Administration imposed $300 million worth of sanctions against Japanese products after deciding that Tokyo had reneged on parts of an agreement under which it would, among other things, import more U.S. computer chips.

The White House has angered Congress on several occasions by turning down pleas for import relief, most notably from the shoe industry. Many Democrats, and a few Republicans as well, are pushing for provisions in the trade bill that would force the Administration to retaliate automatically against unfair foreign traders. The President, though, has vowed to veto any bill that would take away his discretion on when to impose trade sanctions. The conflict has left the Democrats with a dilemma. Explains Rostenkowski: "We need a bill so tough that our trading partners can't ignore it, but so fair that the President wants to sign it."

Writing such a bill will be no easy task. Just keeping track of the provisions in the House and Senate versions of the bill (each of which weighs about five pounds and runs to more than 1,000 pages) is nearly impossible. "The hardest part is remembering what each member of Congress wants," says a member of Rostenkowski's committee staff, "and what priority he puts on each of his requests." Staffers have been working well into the night and coming in on weekends, their briefcases bulging. Bentsen's group is dubbed the "committee that never sleeps."