The Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business trade association, said Monday it was optimistic that Democrats in Congress would pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade despite it having been stalled for months in the Democratic-led House.
Gaps remain between the Democrats and the White House but they are “bridgeable,” Chamber officials argued.
“We think the objective of securing a vote on USMCA in the House before the August recess is a reasonable goal,” Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, told reporters Monday. “It is not that we don’t take the concerns raised by Democrats seriously, but we think the gaps are bridgeable.”
Bradley said he was basing his information on conversations he had with various members he didn’t name.
There is considerable support for the legislation within the Democrat ranks even if they aren’t vocal about it, argued John Murphy, the Chamber’s senior vice president for international policy. “The number of members of Congress who are keeping their powder dry is high,” Murphy said. “Thinking back to past trade agreement over the past two decades, the universe of gettable votes was much smaller. That’s not where we are now. There is a large share of the Democratic caucus that is willing to engage on this.”
Congressional activity on the bill is expected to pick up on July 9, which is the earliest when the deal could be brought up for a vote. After that, there will be four weeks until Congress adjourns for the remainder of the summer. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., controls whether the trade bill is brought up, however, and she is not obligated to do it. The White House has not formally submitted the trade legislation itself yet.
Pelosi has repeatedly said that the trade bill does not have adequate protections to ensure that its provisions on labor rights and environmental protection are enforced, and balked at bringing it up until it does. She has agreed, though, to set up working groups of lawmakers to sit down with members of the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office to try to find a solution. The Chamber officials said Monday that the groups hadn’t yet begun working.
“That’s a good thing,” Murphy said. “We’ve reached that stage in the process where it is important for the administration and members of Congress to have these closed-door discussions. That’s how you reach resolution.”
