Key Senate Dem backs plan to save Obama’s trade agenda

Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) on Monday endorsed a plan to salvage President Obama’s trade agenda, significantly boosting the chances of fast-track legislation reaching the White House this week.

Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said he will back a plan hammered out with Republican leaders to bundle several trade bills, including fast-track trade authority and a measure to help workers displaced by foreign competition.

{mosads}“I held round-the-clock discussions with the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House and leading Democrats over the past week,” Wyden said in a statement.

“I plan to support the continued advancement of the trade package tomorrow,” he said.

Wyden, who is up for reelection in 2016, said the “trade package currently before the Senate is a blueprint for trade done right.”

Wyden’s support for passing the trade package emerged after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed on Friday to attach a bill that would give the Commerce Department more power to punish countries that use illegal subsidies to gain ground in the global marketplace.

The bill — co-authored by Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown (D) and Rob Portman (R) — strengthens anti-dumping and countervailing duty rules.

“We urged Republican leaders to include Senator Brown’s trade enforcement bill as a sign of good faith that Republican leaders will do what is necessary to ensure the entire trade package gets done, and I remain committed to seeing all four bills enacted into law,” Wyden said.

Senate and House leaders along with pro-trade Democrats spent most of last week trying to revive the White House’s trade agenda after a devastating defeat in the House put passage of the legislation in doubt.

McConnell (R-Ky.) was optimistic on Monday that the upper chamber could wrap up work the trade bills before the July 4 recess, starting with a procedural vote on fast-track on Tuesday.

“It was always the goal to ensure these bills passed Congress in the end,” McConnell said on the floor. “It remains the bipartisan goal today.”

If fast-track clears the procedural hurdle, it will set the stage for a final vote on Wednesday, with passage sending the bill to Obama’s desk for his signature.

The Senate then plans to consider a combined measure that with Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and trade preferences measures for sub-Saharan Africa and other developing economies.

The TAA-trade preferences measure would then head to the House, where Democrats would appear to have little incentive to vote against it because it is no longer tied to the fast-track measure that they oppose.

House Democrats recently stalled the fast-track bill earlier this month by voting against TAA. In response, GOP leaders brought up fast-track for a standalone vote, which passed last week in a 218-208 vote.

In May, 14 Senate Democrats voted for fast-track legislation. McConnell will need support from at least 11 of them to pass the bill this week.

Besides Wyden, the other Democrats who voted for fast-track were Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Ben Cardin (Md.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Tom Carper (Del.), Chris Coons (Del.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) and Mark Warner (Va.).