Congressional leaders signaled Tuesday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership won’t get a vote this year despite months of urging from President Obama.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said in separate interviews that the trade deal was doomed by opposition from the presidential nominees of both parties.
“With both the Democrat and Republican candidates for president opposed to the agreement, it’s probably not the best time to be considering the agreement,” said McConnell, who sets the Senate schedule.
McConnell said he has not decided whether to hold a vote on the trade deal after the election, but said “chances are pretty slim we’ll be looking at it this year.”
President Obama has been pushing Congress to ratify the trade accord with 11 Pacific-rim nations. But pushback from both parties as well as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the presumed presidential nominees for the Democrat and Republican parties, have made it impossible for the deal to gain any traction in Congress.
“Did you catch a signal from the fact that both presidential candidates oppose it that perhaps this is not the right moment in history to call up TPP?” Durbin told reporters Tuesday.
Opponents from both parties say the deal hurts American jobs and does not crack down on abusive tactics from other nations such as currency manipulation.
But McConnell said the deal is not dead if Congress doesn’t consider it this year. Congress last year green-lighted broad authority for the current and future presidents to negotiate trade deals through by passing Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation, so Obama’s successor will have to decide what to do with the deal.
“TPA continues through the next president and the agreement doesn’t die this year,” McConnell said. “It’s still out there to be considered or to be modified after the first of the year.”
