Trade agenda pushed by leading business group

“Reflecting this, a key trade priority is passing updated TPA legislation,” he said. 

He said BRT recently launched the Trade Benefits America coalition with other business groups, which represent the manufacturing, services and agricultural sectors.

Froman told The Hill earlier this week that the White House is ready to engage with Congress on fast-track authority legislation, of which a mix of Republican and Democratic lawmakers have also expressed support. 

“With passage of the three FTAs, Russia PNTR, and several other trade measures during the last Congress, we see solid bipartisan support and momentum for promoting additional trade initiatives during this Congress,” Oberhelman wrote. 

To that end, the White House said Wednesday that a primary reason for the president’s trip to Africa is to promote a stronger business and trade relationship on the massive continent. 

“You’ll hear, during the course of the trip, some of our ideas about ways that we can enhance and deepen our economic and trade relationships in Africa, our ideas for how to increase American investment in Africa and American opportunities in African economies,” Jay Carney, White House spokesman, said on the flight to Senegal on Wednesday. 

While the trip is only the second to Africa for Obama during his presidency, Carney insisted that the administration has been working with many nations in improving their trading partnerships and is not too late to the game.  

“We are not too late and nor are we just engaging now,” he said.  

“There have been engagements at a variety of high levels of the Obama administration throughout President Obama’s time in office.”

Still, he argued that there is no time to waste, which is why the White House will use the trip to ramp up the level of engagement.

“We believe that engaging in Africa — as with other regions of the world — economically has a name, not just for the economic advantages and benefits that it provides, but the fact that we can assist Africa through that engagement in lifting up the quality of life of people of African nations and enhancing their progress towards democratization,” Carney said. 

He said the “intense focus” on the Middle East during the past decade “had an unintended consequence that resulted in us not being as engaged in Africa, just as we were not as engaged in Asia as President Obama believes we need to be.”