Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., and other leaders of the New Democrat Coalition today plan to announce their opposition to the Central America Free Trade Agreement, congressional sources and lobbyists said. The announcement deals another blow to Bush administration efforts to build House support for the beleaguered trade pact.

Tauscher has been courted for months by pro-CAFTA business groups as well as the anti-CAFTA labor movement. New Democrats have provided crucial House support for past trade votes, including presidential negotiating authority in 2001.

Tauscher chairs the 40-member New Democrat Coalition. She will be joined at a news conference today by Reps. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Artur Davis of Alabama and Adam Smith of Washington, who are co-chairs of the coalition.

Business sources said Tauscher has told CAFTA supporters that not only is she opposing the deal, but she will whip other New Democrats to oppose it. A few New Democrats already have announced their opposition to CAFTA, including Reps. Joseph Crowley of New York and Jane Harman of California.

A united front of opposition from New Democrats would leave little hope for matching the threshold of 20 Democrats that helped push trade negotiating authority through the House.

One senior Democratic lobbyist who is working to promote the deal said supporters can now expect no more than five to 10 Democrats to back CAFTA.

In addition, support from only a handful of Democrats makes it more likely that the Bush administration will have to cut deals in sector-specific areas like sugar to secure enough support on the Republican side to push the agreement through.

Frustrated CAFTA supporters in the business community said Tauscher and other New Democrats would lose clout on trade policy and pay a political price for opposing CAFTA. "They are sowing the seeds of their own irrelevance," said one Democratic business community source.

House Minority Whip Hoyer said Tuesday in a news conference that no decision had been made as to whether the Democratic leadership would whip against the deal but said he doubted Republicans at this point had enough support even to bring it up.

"We have not gotten involved in whipping it, but I think it is clear that the overwhelming majority of Democrats do not believe that CAFTA, unlike some of the previous agreements that have been considered in this Congress for which many Democrats voted, is in the same context as those," said Hoyer.

He mentioned the Australia trade pact, which he said contained environmental and labor provisions that were not as large a concern for members.

The administration kept up its search for support Tuesday, with Secretary of State Rice telling the Council of Americas' annual meeting that the agreement would "advance democracy, strengthen security and promote prosperity among some of our most important neighbors."

The presidents of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica will visit Washington next week to tout CAFTA's benefits and to meet with President Bush. They will also visit U.S. cities, including Albuquerque, Los Angeles, New York and San Diego, on a tour sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that is modeled after the ambassadors' tour the Chamber sponsored earlier this year.

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