http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/n ... 119175.htm

Posted on Wed, Jul. 13, 2005

Bush to visit Belmont textile plant

President presses support for CAFTA before House vote

JIM MORRILL AND TIM FUNK STAFF WRITERS

/mld/charlotte/news/12119175.htm

President Bush will visit a Belmont textile plant Friday during a whirlwind visit to shore up thin Southern support for a controversial new trade pact.

Bush is scheduled to tour the Helms plant of R.L. Stowe Mills and then tout the Central America Free Trade Agreement in a speech at Gaston College.

In coming to Rep. Sue Myrick's 9th Congressional District, the president is coming to the only district in the Carolinas whose representative publicly supports the pact.

The Senate has approved the trade agreement; a House vote could come as soon as next week. A poll of 39 House members from the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama released Tuesday by Woman's Wear Daily showed Charlotte Republican Myrick one of only two members who support the agreement.

Traveling to Myrick's district was apparently not the White House's first choice in planning the trip. Weeks ago, Bush's advisers had hoped to send the president to Rep. Howard Coble's district to try to turn the Greensboro Republican into a key "yes" vote on CAFTA.

"They called and asked us how would we feel about the president coming to the 6th (Congressional) District and how would that affect his vote on CAFTA," Coble spokesman Ed McDonald said. "We said it would not move (Coble) one inch closer (to supporting the treaty)."

Critics say CAFTA will cost the state jobs by making it easier for U.S. companies to relocate operations in Central America, where labor costs are much cheaper. White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo said Bush believes CAFTA will bring jobs to America.

"The president believes that passing CAFTA is vitally important," she said. "It's going to open up a market of 44 million consumers ... for (U.S.) farmers, small business people and entrepreneurs and by lowering barriers in key segments like textiles ... CAFTA will put America in a better position to compete with low-cost producers in Asia."

Pro-CAFTA forces haven't given up on the 11-term Coble, whose office said he is leaning against the treaty. Three weeks ago, he was among 14 members of Congress invited to the White House for a sit-down meeting on the pact with the president.

Since then House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., called Coble into his office to lobby for CAFTA and GOP national chairman Ken Mehlman phoned to do the same.

"Both sides feel like he's a linchpin -- that he could cause other dominoes to fall," said McDonald. In the meeting with Hastert, McDonald said, Coble got emotional as he told the House speaker about his mother, a former textile worker who died in April at 95.

"He said, `Every time I go into a textile mill, I see the face of my mother,' " McDonald reported. "So it's hard for him to vote for something he thinks could cost textile workers their jobs."