Passing international trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership is low-hanging fruit for the upcoming Republican-controlled Congress. The question is how eager President Obama is to pluck it.
Republicans, Democrats and lobbyists who support the deal all say the votes are there to pass the trade pact among 12 Pacific Rim nations, but it is going to require more attention from the president to corral wavering Democrats and ensure continuing GOP support than he has been willing to expend so far.
“Past trade deals have all required a full-court press,” said Linda Dempsey, vice president for international affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers. “What we are hoping to see is a broader administration effort, starting with the president.”
That was the case under President Clinton when NAFTA went before Congress. Similar levels of schmoozing will be required this time, Dempsey said. That came naturally to Clinton, but Obama has not shown the same inclination.
Key to the endeavor, trade advocates say, is getting Congress to pass Trade Promotion Authority legislation. That would limit congressional approval of deals to simple up or down votes, rather than being able to amend the deal or filibuster it. Without that “fast track” authority, international deals fall apart.
“If the administration wants to close on the trade deals they have, they need to close on TPA. Without TPA, I don’t know how our trading partners take us seriously,” said a Senate Republican staffer.
Without the authority, argues Scott Linicome, a trade policy lawyer and adjunct scholar with the libertarian Cato Institute, other nations don’t have the assurances that the deal they negotiated will become international law.
“Some parties — most notably, the Japanese — are using the lack of TPA as a reason not to provide their best concessions on market access,” Linicome said.
A majority of Senate Republicans are believed to support the trade deal. While there are more trade skeptics among Democrats, trade advocates say there are enough votes there for passage.
But Democratic leaders have been under heavy pressure from a variety of anti-trade groups, primarily environmentalists and organized labor, to oppose the deals.
In his 2014 State of the Union address, Obama called for Congress to pass “bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority” to boost American exports. “China and Europe aren’t standing on the sidelines. Neither should we.”
The next day, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it wasn’t going to happen on his watch. “Everyone would be well-advised to not push this right now,” he said.
While the administration’s trade team continued to talk with Congress, Obama himself did not lean on Democrats to push the authority through.
“In the past, Majority Leader Reid has usually let trade agreements come to the floor [for a vote] even if he hasn’t supported them himself,” a Democratic Senate staffer noted.
Instead, no trade-promotion authority legislation has come up, and it is not expected in the lame-duck session either.
In theory, passing trade deals under a Republican-led Senate should be much easier. Incoming Majority Leader Sen. Scott McConnell, R-Ky., is supportive and another free-trader, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, will become chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has authority on trade deals.
But even a united caucus is going to need at least a few Democratic votes to ward off any potential filibuster.
“The administration needs to step up its outreach to its own members to see what they would want in a TPA bill,” the Republican staffer said.
At the same time, the administration has to take care that in making concessions to woo Democrats, it doesn’t cause Republicans to bolt, Cato’s Linicome noted.
“Even some free-trade Republicans – particularly hard-core conservatives – are concerned about giving more trade-skeptical Democrats a hand in the final substance of TPA,” he said.
That is the scenario that has members of Obama’s party worried, the Senate Democratic staffer said. Lawmakers don’t want to go out on a limb only to have Republicans back away.
“We can reasonably infer that Senate Republicans will still back this, but once it gets over to the House, who knows?” the staffer said.
