Path for three trade agreements emerges after Senate deal

New details emerged Thursday on how a Senate deal could allow three trade deals to move through Congress in September. 

The trade deals negotiated by the Bush administration with South Korea, Colombia and Panama have been stuck for several years, but an agreement Wednesday night in the Senate appears to have set the stage for their passage through Congress. 

President Obama supports all three deals, which include changes since they were negotiated by the previous White House, and argues they would add jobs to the economy. 

{mosads}The impasse has been over Trade Adjustment Assistance, a program that provides help, including job re-training and healthcare, to workers who lose their jobs because of foreign competition. The White House wanted an extension of the TAA program as part of the approval of the three trade deals, while Republicans did not want votes on the measures linked. 

Under the deal, the House is expected to approve legislation to renew the Generalized System of Preferences program, which lowers tariffs on a number of goods made in poorer countries that are not produced by U.S. companies. The program expired in December, causing tariffs to rise.

After the House approves that measure, the Senate would take it up and add the TAA extension. 

That amended bill would return to the House, after which the Obama administration would submit the three pending trade deals. 

The House would then hold four separate votes, one each on the trade deals and another on the TAA-GSP measure. The final package could include an extension of trade preferences for Andean nations, which would be included as part of the Colombia trade agreement. 

The four bills then would go to the Senate for final approval. 

It is thought that there are enough votes for all four measures to be approved, particularly after a group of GOP senators said they would support the TAA legislation. 

But labor unions oppose all three trade agreements, and Democrats are likely to come under intense pressure to oppose them. The Colombia trade deal is particularly controversial with labor groups because of allegations that the country has not done enough to prevent violence against union organizers. 

As a result, the trade fight is expected to highlight differences between President Obama and the left. 

Democrats want tougher language in the Colombia agreement that would provide the United States with some recourse if issues with workers’ rights and violence against labor activists persist. 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday said it was “debatable” whether the agreements would create jobs.

The House is only expected to be in session for 11 days in September and the Senate for 14, so the process to complete the trade deals could take until October, sources said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will insist on amendments to the TAA bill, but “we believe the votes exist to defeat them, end debate and pass it through the Senate. And the votes are obviously there, as they have been for years, to pass the FTAs,” a Senate Republican aide told The Hill. 

McConnell will probably push for an amendment to renew Trade Promotion Authority (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 another trade pact with Asian countries known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). 

Trade Promotion Authority sets up rules for negotiating trade deals, and usually ensures that signed pacts cannot be amended by Congress.

Carol Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said the deal is important because it provides a way forward for votes on the trade agreements, though she said some details on the sequencing of the four votes still needs to be determined.

“While some sequencing details remain to be worked out, the Speaker has now clearly committed to floor consideration of TAA along with the trade agreements,” Guthrie said. “The Senate leaders’ agreement on a way forward is an important step on the path to submission of the pending agreements.”

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said as the clock ticks, the U.S. loses more export and job opportunities to Europe and Canada, which have already entered into agreements with these countries.   

“Washington must act and act now,” Camp said. “We cannot afford to let these trade agreements languish any longer. As we’ve said repeatedly, the House is prepared to act on the three pending trade agreements and on Trade Adjustment Assistance, and I urge the Senate and the White House to be ready to walk down the path announced today in September.”

Camp, the Obama administration and Baucus reached an agreement last month on the substance of a streamlined worker-retraining program that costs significantly less than the 2009 version and is paid for with offsets in other programs. 

This story was updated at 11:33 a.m.