Senate Republicans vow to hold up nominees to force action on trade deals

Senate Republicans have vowed to block any nominee for Commerce secretary or other trade-related nominations until President Obama sends trade pacts with Colombia and Panama to Congress for approval.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate minority leader, and 43 other GOP senators sent a letter on Monday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), saying they were "disappointed by the President’s apparent lack of interest" in the two trade deals.

With that in mind, the senators said they would use "all the tools at our disposal" to force action on the agreements, including not backing a nominee for any office that deals with trade, including the top spot at the Commerce Department.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio.), who served from 2005 to 2006 as U.S. Trade Representative, said the idea to hold up the Commerce nomination was "born out of frustration," and emphasized that lawmakers and the White House "need to get beyond politics."

"We've tried everything else, including logic and facts and presenting in a very clear, again, bipartisan way why it's important to move forward with these trade opening agreements to create jobs," Portman said. 

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who has joined in Republicans in urging the administration to send up the trade agreements soon, told The Hill that this GOP tactic is "a diversion from our goal and is simply not the way to ensure their passage."

Meanwhile, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk spokeswoman Carol Guthrie reiterated in an email to The Hill that all parties share the goal of moving the three pending trade agreements, and "we believe we can get there the right way."

USTR urged Congress to ratify the Korean accord because it provides "an immediate opportunity" to increase U.S. exports by upward of $12 billion while supporting 70,000 jobs.    

"We are urging Congress to move forward on this agreement even as we move to complete work with Colombia and Panama and advance those agreements as soon as possible," she said. "The president’s goal is the passage of all three agreements with issues resolved, just as they were resolved with Korea in a way that showed the American people that a robust and forward-moving trade policy can be responsive to their concerns."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also urged action on the Korean agreement and suggested, as Kirk did last week, that Republicans lift their opposition to the Trade Assistance Adjustment program (TAA), which helps U.S workers who've lost their jobs because of foreign trade, as well as the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA), which grants preferential treatment to exports from several Andean countries as a way to curb the illegal trade of drugs.

"Democrats believe we need to focus on American jobs first," Reid told reporters. "President Obama improved the Korea free trade agreement and he wants to do the same with the Colombia and Panama agreements. We want to make sure that our trade agreements serve the best interests of American workers and businesses, not just the economies of the foreign nations we are trading with."

Senate Republicans and Democrats vowed last week to hold up the trade agreement with South Korea if the Obama administration doesn't send up all three pacts to Congress either as a package or close enough together to ratify them in succession. 

McConnell said Monday that he wouldn't vote against the Korea agreement, which he favors, but is willing to listen to proposals by the administration to wrap up the long-delayed trade agreements quickly.

"I'm not in favor of holding up or voting against something I support," McConnell told reporters. "Get it up here and you won't have any trouble with the nominee for secretary of Commerce."

While there's a push by many Republicans to get the trade agreements done together, McConnell said he's open to ideas from the administration.

"We have to hear from them, we're anxious to help the president do what he says he wants to do," said McConnell about the administration's plans to double the nation's exports by 2015. 

"It's time to move forward." 

The president announced last week that he was nominating Gary Locke, the current Commerce secretary, to be the ambassador to China. The top envoy in Beijing, Jon Huntsman, announced he was returning to the United States earlier this year.  

The Obama administration also said last week that the trade deal with South Korea is ready to be sent to Congress, and also signaled that the Colombia and Panama agreements were closer to being finished than lawmakers might expect. 

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said his team is trying to work out the final details of the agreements and are meeting with trade delegations of Colombia and Panama. 

But those comments have failed to assuage Republicans in either chamber of Congress, some of whom have said they want all three trade deals done by the first part of this year. 

House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has set a July 1 deadline to move all three agreements while saying their completion is long overdue. 

This story was updated at 6:25 p.m.