Lawmakers, White House look to cut deal on free trade bills
Three long-delayed pending trade deals could take center stage in the House next week if negotiators can carve out an agreement within the next few days.
Congressional lawmakers and White House officials are engaged in nearly non-stop talks on the details that could lead to an agreement on a trade package that would move three pending accords with Colombia, Panama and South Korea and include a reauthorization of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program (TAA), a program that helps U.S workers who’ve lost their jobs because of foreign trade.
{mosads}The House Ways and Means Committee would take the next step with a mock markup, a non-binding meeting that gives lawmakers a chance to discuss the trade agreements and offer amendments. President Obama is free to accept or reject any amendments before sending the final agreements to Congress. Once on Capitol Hill, those deals will likely move under fast-track authority and can’t be amended.
Completion of the House’s mock markup would then set up the three long-delayed trade deals for separate House votes sometime in July.
Senate Republicans expressed their desire to wrap up work on the trade deals, focusing Saturday’s weekly address on how the three agreements will create jobs as the labor market struggles.
“The president can no longer hold these agreements back,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said in the address. “Currently, he is holding them up in order to negotiate the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. TAA can be addressed separately in the context of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), as it generally has been in the past since 1974.”
“For the good of our economy, and our country, he needs to send these free agreements to the U.S. Senate for approval now, so that U.S. workers and businesses can begin to realize their benefits.”
{mosads}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 in February.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky.), along with Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have called on the White House to drop its demand for TAA or consider its renewal along with TPA, an issue the Obama administration has said isn’t on the table for consideration right now but will be looked at down the road as negotiations advance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). 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.
It’s unclear what version of TAA will emerge from the talks but it’s likely that the administration and Democrats will have to forego some of the 2009 changes to TAA in order to ink a broader long-term deal for the program. That could mean excluding service workers and cutting back on the healthcare tax benefit that was added as part of the economic stimulus. The length of the reauthorization and how it would go through Congress also is in play.
If the trade deals begin moving forward that could possibly clear the way for President Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, John Bryson, in the Senate. The Senate Commerce Science, and Transportation Committee is slated to discuss the nomination on Tuesday. Senate Republicans have vowed to block any trade-related nominees until the trade agreements are sent up to Capitol Hill. Meanwhile, several Republicans, including Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) have expressed opposition to Bryson’s nomination.
The trade package under negotiations also includes the reauthorization of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which expired in December and the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA).
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 any costs associated with TAA’s renewal. House rules don’t require offsets for tariffs and tax cuts but the costs must be paid for in the Senate.
