WASHINGTON — Memo from the Clinton team to the new Bush administration on trade issues: Follow our successes, but learn from our mistakes. Keep negotiating free trade deals with Chile, Singapore and the entire Western Hemisphere. Skip the bruising battle with Congress over fast-track authority.

        That was the advice President Clinton's top trade negotiator, Charlene Barshefsky, gave to the incoming administration Thursday in her last speech as U.S. trade representative.

        She predicted that the Bush administration would push ahead with talks started by Mr. Clinton to create a free-trade area covering the entire Western Hemisphere as well as striking separate agreements with Chile and Singapore.

        “There is no question that the new administration will continue with the basic policy course we set,” Ms. Barshefsky said in her speech to the Washington International Trade Association.

        She urged the new administration to set as a top priority the start of negotiations to get Russia into the World Trade Organization as a way of incorporating the former communist giant in the global economy.

        Mr. Clinton's efforts to move forward with an ambitious trade agenda were hindered by the fact that Congress refused to give him fast-track negotiating authority, which requires Congress to vote on agreements on an expedited basis without amendments.

        Ms. Barshefsky said the administration's success in winning congressional ap proval to grant China permanent normal trade relations as part of its WTO membership bid was proof a president does not need fast-track authority to forge major trade agreements.

        She said the China vote showed the fallacy of the old argument that no country would negotiate with a president who did not have fast track, for fear that Congress would pick apart the deal.

        She said Congress was more likely to vote for a specific trade deal with demonstrable benefits for U.S. industries rather than a generic request for negotiating authority.

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