Obama’s new enemy on trade: Bipartisanship

A bill authorizing the president to negotiate “fast track” trade deals has cleared the Senate, but it’s not clear whether it can pass the House, where most Democrats and a significant faction of Republicans stand in the way of passage.

Watching a combination of Republicans and Democrats line up against one of his major agenda items would be a sore blow to Obama, one that some are saying would mark the official start of his lame duck status in office.

The Senate approved trade promotion authority legislation, or TPA, in a late-night session after weeks of negotiations with opponents. But it took a last-minute promise by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to bring to the floor an unrelated measure to renew the Export-Import Bank.

In the House, TPA faces near-universal opposition among Democrats. And even though Republicans control the majority, they will lose a number of votes from conservatives who don’t want to give Obama any more executive authority in the wake of Obama’s recent directives on immigration.

Some Republicans may also peel away from the bill because they oppose renewing Ex-Im and were angered by McConnell’s pledge to take up a bill to renew it as part of the deal to move the trade bill. That promise has made it harder for House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to change the minds of Republicans on trade.

These factors have left the GOP leadership short on votes for TPA. It will take 217 votes to pass the legislation, and Republicans control 245 votes, but dozens of GOP members are known to be opposed.

“The vocal majority of my constituents are against it,” said Rep. Tom Massie, R-Ky. “I’m leaning no.”

For now, Republicans are saying the momentum is on their side, and they hope to have the numbers by the time the vote happens, which could be as early as next week.

“Whip Scalise and Chairman Ryan are continuing to work shoulder-to-shoulder to grow the vote, and things are moving steadily in the right direction,” a top leadership aide told the Washington Examiner.

But it’s taking a real effort on the part of Republicans to clear the House hurdle. Ryan has already started a campaign to sell the notion of trade to skeptics.

Ryan published a pro-TPA article on the Fox News website Thursday outlining the benefits of the legislation, which he said “puts Congress in the driver’s seat,” on trade deals by requiring new pacts adhere to 150 negotiating objectives.

The problems Republicans face as they try to win over their caucus have prompted some to call on Obama to get more Democrats on board.

“This is an opportunity for the president to step up and provide leadership in his conference,” Scalise said. “Because one thing we don’t see is that strong push by the administration to bring more Democrats to support this initiative as well.”

But the picture is much worse for Obama on the Democratic side. Obama can count on a little more than a dozen House Democrats to back the bill, out of 188.

Obama clearly favors the legislation, but he has been notoriously uninterested in working closely with congressional lawmakers over the years, even within his own party. This has weakened his ability to find Democratic support.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill is too far-reaching and suggested shortening the measure’s three-year authorization, which she called “carte blanche for fast track.” That three-year timeframe has the potential to give a Republican president a chance to reach trade agreements should the GOP contender win the White House in 2016.

House Democrats were also hoping the Senate bill would include an amendment sponsored by Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., that would hold accountable any trade pact country that is deemed to be manipulating its currency.

But that amendment, opposed by both Obama and GOP leaders, failed in a 48-51 vote.

Democratic support for trade deals has faltered over the years, in large part because unions oppose them. Democrats say they feel betrayed by the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed by President Clinton in 1993 and backed by many Democratic lawmakers.

They say NAFTA and subsequent deals killed U.S. manufacturing jobs and lacked enforcement of the rules, leaving American workers at a disadvantage and increasing the trade deficit. Those arguments have languished for nearly a decade, and have prevented the negotiation of any significant trade agreements.

The two parties have recently found some common ground in their opposition to the secrecy surrounding these trade deals, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership now being negotiated between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations. Lawmakers are only allowed to view the trade deal text in a locked room and cannot leave with notes or copies.

The White House is nonetheless optimistic it can get House Democrats to support the bill, which would let Obama negotiation trade deals that can’t be amended, and can only be approved or rejected by Congress.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest last week pointed to the 14 Senate Democrats who voted in favor the bill as a sign there is room for more Democrats to support the bill.

“We’ve been preparing the ground in advance of House consideration of this legislation and we’re certainly going to be making a case that’s consistent with the case that we made in the United States Senate that yielded the support of about a third of the Democrats in the Senate,” Earnest said.

But some of those Democrats agreed to back the bill only after McConnell pledged to allow a vote to extend the Export-Import Bank.

Speaker of the House John Boehner is making no such promise, in part because of the staunch opposition from many of his GOP rank-and-file.

Boehner said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., asked him if he would bring the temporary extension to the floor following a promise by McConnell to take it up in the upper chamber in June.

“She contacted me and I told her I would not make that commitment,” Boehner told reporters last week.