White House threatens veto of trade job-loss bill

The White House threatened on Tuesday to veto a bill to expand federal assistance for retraining workers who have lost their jobs because of trade, but said it wanted to work with Congress to revamp the program.


The veto threat prompted a Democratic warning that the Bush administration's hopes of winning Congress's approval of trade agreements with Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea were at risk.


The bill, headed to a vote this week in the House of Representatives, fails to make needed reforms and instead converts the federal trade adjustment assistance program "from a trade-related program to a universal income-support and training program," the White House budget office said in a statement.


"Accordingly, if this bill were presented to the president in its current form, the president's senior advisors would recommend he veto the bill," it said.



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