Trade deals could be ready next week

Congressional lawmakers and the White House are closing in on agreement that could bring three pending trade agreements to a House panel for consideration next week. 

“We continue to move to a [mock markup] schedule for next week,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) told The Hill on Thursday night. 

{mosads}The trade package under negotiation would include all three pending free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia, reauthorization of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which expired in December, the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA) and the Trade Adjustment Assistance program (TAA), which helps U.S workers who’ve lost their jobs because of foreign trade, Brady said. 

“It’s my understanding that discussions are occurring very frequently,” he said. 

Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, said he didn’t know the length or exact design of a renewal of the TAA program and whether lawmakers will take up a TAA bill separately, as some members have requested. 

Last month, the Obama administration said it wouldn’t submit the three pending trade deals for congressional approval until lawmakers agreed to renew TAA, which expired earlier this year. 

Negotiators also need to find about $9 billion in pay-fors for revenue lost to tariffs that will end once the agreements are in place, along with the estimated $1 billion a year cost for TAA, if it’s renewed at 2009 levels. 

He said cuts in user fees could be used for Colombia and Panama but there is less certainty on Korea because there hasn’t been as much money available from the user-fee accounts. 

While all the details are still in flux, an announcement of the mock markup would signal that a deal is ready to go, Brady said. 

“The trade agenda is so critical and we have a timetable and are pushing toward it,” he said. 

Brady said to expect two days between the announcement and the holding of the markup. 

Completion of the House’s mock markup would then set up the three long-delayed trade deals for separate votes sometime in July, Brady said. 

The House and Senate are in session together, a component necessary to vote on the trade deals, for two weeks next month: July 11 to 15 and July 25 to 29. 

Brady’s comments correspond to those by U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials on Wednesday when they said they were “optimistic” that lawmakers and the White House are “very close” on a deal to reauthorize  TAA, which would allow the trade deals to go forward.  

“We believe the gap between them is bridgeable,” John Murphy, the Chamber’s vice president of international affairs, told reporters at a news conference. 

The acceleration in completing the deals comes as congressional supporters including the Chamber, along with other business lobbyists, ramp up their effort to urge Congress to pass the agreements this summer. 

Senate Republican leaders have urged the White House to send up the three agreements without attaching other trade-related programs.

{mosads}Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky.), along with Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have been particularly outspoken, calling for the White House to drop its demand for TAA and get the three deals done. 

McConnell also had said he wants any talks about reauthorizing TAA to include discussions about authorizing Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), an issue the Obama administration has said isn’t on the table for consideration right now will look at down the road as negotiations advance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Such fast-track authority would allow the administration to negotiate new trade deals subject to rules drawn up by Congress that could allow the deals to come up for votes in the Senate without being amended.

Brady said that McConnell is “certainly” raising the issue of TPA during the talks. 

Chamber President Tom Donohue said Wednesday that the business group is intensifying its efforts to move the trade deals, while labor unions came out with a campaign against the deal with Colombia, arguing that language is needed within the trade deal that ensures enforcement of new workers rights laws. 

On Monday, the U.S. Trade Representative announced that Colombia had met another set of milestones outlined under the labor action plan the country agreed to with the administration, essentially clearing the way for the deal to head to Capitol Hill. 

That labor action plan was designed to improve the country’s labor rights record before its trade deal with America was approved.