Deal reached on fast-track authority for Obama on pact
WASHINGTON — Key congressional leaders agreed Thursday on legislation to give President Barack Obama special authority to finish negotiating one of the world’s largest trade accords, starting a rare battle that aligns the president with Republicans against a broad coalition of Democrats.
In what is sure to be one of the toughest fights of his last 19 months in office, the “fast track” bill allowing the White House to pursue its planned Pacific trade deal also heralds a divisive fight within the Democratic Party, one that could spill into the 2016 presidential campaign.
With committee votes planned next week, liberal senators such as Sherrod Brown of Ohio are demanding to know Hillary Clinton’s position on the bill to give the president so-called trade promotion authority, or TPA.
Trade unions, environmentalists and Latino political organizations — potent Democratic constituencies — also quickly lined up in opposition, arguing that past trade pacts have failed to deliver on their promise and that the latest effort will harm American workers and the middle class rather than helping them.
The deal was struck by Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Finance Committee chairman; Ron Wyden of Oregon, the committee’s ranking Democrat; and Rep. Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
It would give Congress the power to vote on the more encompassing 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership once it is completed, but would deny lawmakers the chance to amend what would be the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994. A separate trade accord with Europe is also in the works.
The largest beneficiaries of any trade deal would be business. While supporters have promised broad gains for American consumers and the economy, the clearest winners of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement would be U.S. agriculture, along with technology and pharmaceutical companies, insurers and many large manufacturers that say they could also expand United States’ exports to the other 11 nations in Asia and South America that are involved.
Obama embraced the legislation immediately, proclaiming “it would level the playing field, give our workers a fair shot, and for the first time, include strong fully enforceable protections for workers’ rights, the environment, and a free and open Internet.”