[CTC] IUST: House Republican Doubts TPP Vote In 2016

[Dolan, Mike]

Daily News
House Republican Doubts TPP Vote In 2016; Connolly Sees Lame-Duck Window
Posted: December 02, 2015
The conservative House Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on Wednesday (Dec. 2) said Congress will not likely vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal next year, even during the lame-duck session, and implored the administration to tamp down expectations among other TPP partners for quick congressional approval.

During a hearing on Capitol Hill, and in subsequent comments to reporters, Subcommittee Chairman Matt Salmon (R-AZ) said the political realities of the election year and the fact that leading Republican and Democratic presidential candidates have expressed opposition to the TPP deal make a congressional vote in the spring or summer of 2016 unlikely.

"Typically, in the past, real heavy lifting bills don't pass during an election year. And this is a really heavy lifting bill," Salmon, a roughly 10-year veteran lawmaker and one of the members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who supported renewal of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) in June, told Inside U.S. Trade.

Salmon also argued that pushing the deal through during the lame duck -- with a Congress and administration he said would not be accountable -- would be a bad strategy that could sour public and lawmaker opinion on future trade deals like the one being negotiated with the EU, but said he had not directly spoken to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) about the timing of the TPP vote.

"I would not support [TPP] in a lame duck. I would support it right after we have a new president because I think it's such a cop-out to pass tough stuff [when] people won't face the voters again," he said. "I think that being 'too-cute-by-half' is what causes people to oppose the next trade agreement. And we shouldn't just be thinking about the here and now."

He made specific reference to the fact that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is also still being negotiated. Salmon is a member of the Congressional TTIP Caucus.

In comments to reporters after the hearing, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), who serves on the subcommittee and has been one of the most ardent Democratic supporters of TPA and TPP, disagreed with Salmon about the chances of a lame-duck vote on TPP. But he also urged the Obama administration to face up to the reality that the lame duck is its only chance to have Congress pass TPP before the president leaves office.

Salmon and Connolly both told Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Bruce Hirsh, who testified at the hearing, that the Obama administration needs to come up with a strategy to reassure other TPP nations that the delay in securing approval of the agreement does not mean it will never happen.

When asked whether USTR was already doing any of this work, Hirsh responded that the administration at the moment was focused on educating members of Congress on the agreement with the belief that support would materialize.

Salmon retorted that while it was "great to be optimistic," it was prudent for the administration to have a "Plan B."

Similarly, Connolly signaled that the timing of the TPP vote will not be determined by the substance of what is in the TPP agreement, but by political considerations.

"Mr. Hirsh, I wish we lived in a world of pure reason and rational actors, but I don't think the dynamic for approval of this agreement is simply a matter of more information, 'the more people know, the more we'll come to love it,'" Connolly said. "I wish that were true, but I don't think it is."

The subcommittee hearing was on U.S. strategic interests and the East Asia Summit and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, both of which took place last month.



Michael F. Dolan, J.D.
Legislative Representative
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Desk  202.624.6891
Fax    202.624.8973
Cell    202.437.2254

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