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Marathon trade bill fight poised to end with quick sprint to passage
The House and Senate are poised to move with lightning speed this week to approve three trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama submitted just last week by President Obama.
Wednesday votes are set in both the House and Senate on the deals and approval is on track just in time for a Thursday joint address to Congress by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
Technically Congress could have debated the deals for 90 days. The sprint on the trade deals comes after a marathon political struggle reaching as far back as 2007 when Democrats told President George W. Bush not to bother submitting the pacts for approval.
Only under one unlikely scenario could one or more of the deals fail at this point, lobbyists and trade experts said late last week.
If the House blocks approval on Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits on Wednesday, Senate Democrats may retaliate hours later by voting down one of the trade pacts.
Experts say enough House Republicans appear to be on board with TAA benefits to avoid this however. One said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would not have announced the Wednesday votes if he thought the House would defeat TAA.
The votes will be the first big trade votes in this Congress and the first since a trade pact with Peru was passed in 2007.
Except for a possible vote on Russia’s World Trade Organization bid, they are likely the last big trade votes for a while. With fast-track trade negotiating authority expired, completion of a TransPacific Partnership pact or the elusive World Trade Organization Doha round appear remote.
There is deep public skepticism about trade generally. The vote on the three deals, first signed by Bush, is especially divisive for Democrats and rust-belt representatives from both parties.
Some 20 GOP freshmen did not sign on to a letter earlier this year in support of the deals and their offices had them as undecided as recently as last month. The New Democrat Coalition, which has 42 members in the House, is on board, so House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) can afford to lose several dozen trade skeptics in his party on the vote.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is especially unhappy about the upcoming vote. In 2008 she changed the rules of the House to block a vote on the Colombia deal after Bush sent it to Congress over Democratic objections. On Thursday she said Congress should not vote on the FTAs until the House takes up a measure punishing China for its undervalued currency.
“The public has very serious concerns about the trade bills right now. And it's always hard, in times of unemployment, to convince the American people that we should -- that trade is going to open it up, especially after the experiences that they've had in their regions,” she said.
Opponents and supporters see the deals themselves passing, however, largely due to careful maneuvering by President Obama, his pro-business chief of staff William Daley and trade representative Ron Kirk.
Obama, who campaigned on renegotiating the NAFTA, struck a different note upon taking office. He focused on improving environmental and labor provisions.
Obama renegotiated the automotive provisions in the Korea deal, and worked to improve Panama’s labor and tax laws so these deals enjoy the most Democratic support.
Colombia still has major problems with anti-union violence and many Democrats are expected to oppose it.
The AFL-CIO is opposed to all three agreements and it remains to be seen whether labor will withhold crucial get-out-the-vote support to Obama over the deals in next year’s election.
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