[CTC] NYT: Obama’s Trade Bills Face Tough Battle Against House Democrats

Fri Jun 12 05:21:44 PDT 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/politics/obamas-trade-bills-face-tough-battle-against-house-democrats.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Obama’s Trade Bills Face Tough Battle Against House Democrats
By JONATHAN WEISMAN <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/jonathan_weisman/index.html>JUNE 12, 2015

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s ambitious push to expand his trade negotiating powers faces a final congressional showdown on Friday, but lawmakers in his own party — pressed hard by organized labor, environmental groups and liberal activists — are threatening to bring down the entire package of trade bills.

The House on Friday will take up two critical bills already passed by the Senate. The first would offer so-called trade adjustment assistance — including job training, relocation allowances and assistance with health care costs — to workers who lose their jobs because of free trade deals. The second would grant this president and the next “trade promotion authority” — the power to negotiate international trade accords that could not be amended or filibustered by Congress.

Those measures are meant to ease completion this year of the most ambitious trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s. The latest deal, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership <https://ustr.gov/tpp>, would stretch from Canada to Chile and Australia to Japan, linking 40 percent of the global economy in a complex web of trade rules. Another accord with Europe would probably follow under the next president.

“This vote is about doing what’s right for the country,” said House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who has made rare common cause with the president on trade against the liberal Democrats who have been the bedrock of Mr. Obama’s support. “If we work together, it will be a big win for American jobs and American leadership.”

But first, Mr. Obama must overcome the stiff resistance of a large majority of House Democrats, whose leaders have used increasingly scathing language against a president they have long stood by.

“This is the record of the current administration,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut. “Colombian labor leaders killed. Peruvian forests cleared. American jobs lost to South Korea.”

Mr. Obama made an unscheduled stop on Thursday night at the annual congressional baseball game at Nationals Park in Washington to buttonhole Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, and personally lobby Democrats on the trade legislation. So far, just 21 of the House’s 188 Democrats have declared their support, and few think that number will climb much higher.

Continue reading the main story <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/politics/obamas-trade-bills-face-tough-battle-against-house-democrats.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0#story-continues-2>RELATED COVERAGE

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal: What It Would MeanMAY 11, 2015
 <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/business/unpacking-the-trans-pacific-partnership-trade-deal.html>The Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal: What It Would MeanMAY 11, 2015
Obama’s Trade Deal Faces Bipartisan Peril in the HouseMAY 31, 2015
 <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/business/obamas-push-for-trade-deal-faces-bipartisan-peril-in-house.html>Obama’s Trade Deal Faces Bipartisan Peril in the HouseMAY 31, 2015
The trade assistance measure, long opposed by Republicans as ineffective and unnecessary, was devised to attract support for the trade promotion bill from Democrats. Instead, its passage has become perhaps the biggest threat to the president’s trade agenda.

Republicans will overwhelmingly oppose that bill, expecting Democrats to carry the weight. But as many as 76 Democrats have expressed opposition, either because its assistance is too paltry or because they object to the way it was to be paid for, with a small adjustment to Medicare <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>.

Continue reading the main story <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/politics/obamas-trade-bills-face-tough-battle-against-house-democrats.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0#story-continues-3>RELATED IN OPINION <http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html>
Op-Ed Columnist: Trade and TrustMAY 22, 2015
 <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/opinion/paul-krugman-trade-and-trust.html>Op-Ed Columnist: Trade and TrustMAY 22, 2015
Editorial: Trade Wars in CongressMAY 12, 2015
 <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/opinion/trade-wars-in-congress.html>Editorial: Trade Wars in CongressMAY 12, 2015
The House overwhelmingly passed legislation on Thursday to change that financing mechanism, replacing it with proceeds from slightly larger penalties for late tax-return filers. But even Democrats noted that that fix may be beside the point.

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Democrats who oppose “fast track” negotiating powers and the trade accords they are supposed to produce know that by voting down the trade assistance bill, they can kill the whole package. Republican leaders announced on Wednesday night that if the trade assistance bill dies, they will not even bring the trade promotion bill to a vote.

If that first hurdle can be cleared, both supporters and opponents expect a cliffhanger vote for trade promotion authority. That was presaged by an extended vote on Thursday simply on the rule to consider the trade bills on the House floor.

Continue reading the main story <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/politics/obamas-trade-bills-face-tough-battle-against-house-democrats.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0#story-continues-5>DOCUMENT 
Annex of Proposed Pacific Trade Accord 
The Obama Administration is shifting its stance on drug pricing in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, according to a newly leaked “transparency” annex of the proposed trade accord. 

 OPEN DOCUMENT  <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/10/business/international/document-annex-of-proposed-pacific-trade-accord.html> OPEN DOCUMENT 
That rule for floor action passed 217 to 212, but only after eight pro-trade Democrats broke rank with their leaders and voted yes to put it over the top. Thirty-four Republicans voted against the procedural measure, which by tradition is supposed to pass along party lines. Many of those 34 will oppose trade promotion on Friday.

Passage of the trade package would be a huge victory for the president in his final 18 months in office and could help secure a legacy-defining trade accord. But the trade bill’s power is broader than that. The expanded trade negotiating power would extend for three years, with an option for Congress to extend it for three more years.

The president and his Republican allies of convenience say the globalization of economic forces is happening with or without such trade agreements. By taking the lead, the United States can set high standards for worker rights and environmental protection while protecting intellectual property and international investors and entrepreneurs, they say. The Pacific accord specifically will form a bulwark against the rising power of China in the region.

Most Democrats say that since Nafta, such trade deals have increased corporate profits and enriched executives and high-rolling investors while depressing wages and costing tens of thousands of jobs.

“Come to Poughkeepsie. Walk past the broken sidewalks and shuttered factories and tell the people how trade has helped them,” said Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York.

Continue reading the main story <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/politics/obamas-trade-bills-face-tough-battle-against-house-democrats.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0#story-continues-8> <http://www.nytimes.com/first-draft>
Today in Politics: In Tight Contest, Trade Deal Heads to the Bottom of the Ninth 07:00 AM ET
 <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/12/today-in-politics-in-tight-contest-trade-deal-heads-to-the-bottom-of-the-ninth/>
Obama Makes Surprise Trip to Nationals Park to Lobby Pelosi 9:29 PM ET
 <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/11/obama-makes-surprise-trip-to-nats-park-to-lobby-pelosi/>
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Ahead of the vote, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez and the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, huddled with House Democrats on Thursday afternoon, pleading for their support — at least for the trade adjustment assistance bill. Their case: If trade adjustment assistance, a program dating to 1962, is not extended and expanded on Friday, Republicans may let it die for good.

“We need to treat this moment for what it is: a life or death moment for T.A.A.,” Mr. Lew told the group, according to a Democratic aide in the room.

On the Republican side, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the Ways and Means Committee chairman, and other leaders were offering favors to win over conservatives one by one. A trade enforcement bill that is also part of Friday’s package has been loaded with conservative wishes, including a measure prohibiting trade agreements from compelling United States action on climate change or expanding visas for foreign workers.

That, in turn, angered Democrats.

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“How can you in this day and age separate climate and commerce?” Ms. Pelosi said. “Impossible.”

Mr. Boehner expressed some optimism that the package would pass, but, he added, “I’m not in the guaranteeing business,” not with the pressure being applied by organized labor.

“After the unions locked down the Democrats, they turned their fire on conservative Republicans,” he said.
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