Pelosi pushes back against Obama-backed free-trade agreements

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi pushed back Wednesday against several pending free-trade agreements championed by President Obama.

The California Democrat signaled doubts that looming trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia would benefit U.S. workers. President Obama on Tuesday called on Congress to approve the deals, which he and Republicans argue would create jobs.

“The White House may support it, but the Congress may have a different view,” Pelosi warned on MSNBC.

During a lengthy interview, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell suggested that the long-delayed trade pacts “could have produced more jobs.”

The three trade pacts have been languishing while the White House and Republican leaders joust over the administration's wish to extend a program that provides aid to U.S. workers who could be harmed by the deals. Many Republicans oppose the program, while others say the program’s extension should not be linked to the trade deals.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk this week suggested the administration is close to a deal with Republicans that would allow votes on the workers' assistance program and the trade deals to go forward.

Dozens of liberal Democrats oppose the trade agreements regardless of whether they are connected to the workers' aid program, however. They argue the deals would benefit businesses but leave workers out in the cold. Most labor unions also oppose the deals, with a handful of exceptions.

Fresh from a pummeling over the debt-ceiling increase, Democrats are hoping to shift the national discussion from deficit spending to jobs. Many in Pelosi’s caucus are incensed that the debt-limit deal included nearly $1 trillion in domestic spending cuts, but no tax-revenue increases. The lawmakers are concerned that the cuts will affect low- and middle-income people disproportionately, while wealthier folks bear none of the deficit-reduction burden.

"It’s a bad deal, but it’s a done deal," Pelosi said of the debt-ceiling package, which Obama signed into law Tuesday. "It’s time for us to move on.

“This is about how we go to the next steps: jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.”