Senate Republicans urge White House to drop conditions on pending trade deals

Senate Republican leaders urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to send Congress three pending free trade agreements without attaching other legislation to help workers hurt by increased trade. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky.), along with Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), are asking the White House to drop its demand to include an extension of the trade adjustment assistance (TAA) program as part of a package that would also include bills implementing long-stalled trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. 

McConnell wants any talks about reauthorizing TAA to include discussions about extending trade promotion authority (TPA), an issue the Obama administration has said isn't on the table for consideration right now but might be looked at down the road as negotiations advance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal involving countries in Asia. 

“I would also suggest that any discussion of trade adjustment assistance only be done as part of the debate over extending trade promotion authority, the way it’s been done for decades," McConnell said on the Senate floor. 

“So this morning I’m calling on the administration once again to send us the three pending trade agreements that the president himself has said would create tens of thousands of American jobs and to leave trade adjustment assistance out of it," he said. 

“If the president is really serious about doubling U.S. exports and creating the jobs that would go along with it, he should call on Congress to approve trade promotion authority and Congress should do it."

In mid-May, the Obama administration announced that it would seek a reauthorization of TAA, which expired in February, and expired trade preference programs as part of a package to pass the three trade accords.

In May, 162 House Democrats called for a five-year extension of TAA, while 41 Senate Democrats and 25 governors sent letters to the White House supporting a deal that includes TAA before formally submitting any of the trade deals to Congress.

Trade officials have said they want a deal on TAA and other trade-related issues before sending the trade agreements to Capitol Hill. 

Hatch scolded administration officials for using the TAA reauthorization "as another excuse to delay voting on these important agreements." He called the policy "irresponsible and self-defeating."  

"If expanded TAA is so critical where's the record of success to prove it?" Hatch said. "What evidence in there that giving some workers who've lost their jobs more benefits than others improves U.S. competitiveness or is a responsible way to spend taxpayer dollars," he said.  

"The mere fact that more people are in the program and more money is being spent is not evidence of success." 

If the White House doesn't submit the trade agreements this summer, Hatch expressed concern that they will never make it to Capitol Hill. 

"The Obama administration is sitting on them, hurting our economy and undermining our job growth," he said. 

At a May 25 hearing, Hatch said renewal of TAA doesn't have enough support to get through Congress because it's too expensive, risking the future of three pending free trade accords. 

"There's no appetite on Capitol Hill for more spending, even for a program designed to help workers retrain for other jobs" because renewing the TAA program at 2009 levels would cost about $7.2 billion over 10 years, and is "piling on more debt" when the "country is basically broke."

“By tacking the expansion of TAA onto the stimulus bill, and refusing to allow Congress to vote on the extended TAA program on its own merits, it is unclear whether there is, in fact, bipartisan support for this expanded program," Hatch said Tuesday on the Senate floor. "If the expanded TAA program can stand on its own merits, as each of the FTAs can, then it should be introduced and voted on separately from the FTAs."

Meanwhile, McConnell aimed his remarks toward the influence of labor unions on the issue. 

“It’s astonishing," he said. "I mean, how do you explain to an American manufacturer or farmer that they have to lose business to France because some members of Congress want a better benefits package for their allies in organized labor?

“You can’t.

“The White House is free to advocate on behalf of unions. That’s it's prerogative. But this time it’s gone too far."

McConnell argued that there are 47 duplicative federal retraining programs out there for unemployed workers. 

"No one is denying or minimizing the hardships they face," he said. "But we will not allow the White House to deny one group of people the chance to get a job in order to have a bargaining chip in negotiating benefits for others."

“It’s not fair, and it’s not right."

Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, have said they back TAA reauthorization. The Chamber is pushing for Congress to complete the deals before the August recess.