[CTC] NYT: Obama’s Push for Trade Deal Faces Bipartisan Peril in House (plus)

[Arthur Stamoulis]

AP and WSJ articles also below…

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/business/obamas-push-for-trade-deal-faces-bipartisan-peril-in-house.html?_r=0

Obama’s Push for Trade Deal Faces Bipartisan Peril in House


WASHINGTON — The bruising battle over President Obama <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per>’s push for the power to negotiate two potentially far-reaching trade pacts will shift this week to the House, where the White House faces entrenched opposition from Democrats and the stirring of rebellion from the Republicans’ right flank.

Advocates of the trade bill from both parties say they are gaining strength since it passed the Senate just before the Memorial Day break. But that 62-to-37 vote — while bipartisan — was not the overwhelming victory House supporters had hoped for.

And those advocates concede they do not yet have the votes to hand the White House trade promotion authority, which would allow Mr. Obama to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade accord, knowing Congress could vote for or against it but not amend or filibuster <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/filibusters_and_debate_curbs/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> it. (Another trade deal, involving Europe, is also being negotiated but is not expected to be completed until after Mr. Obama leaves office.)

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Only 17 Democrats out of 188 have come out in favor of so-called fast-track authority — and many of them are being hounded by labor and environmental groups to change their minds. Opponents of the trade deal say just seven Democrats remain truly undecided.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, who has yet to declare her position, has told House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio that he will have to produce 200 Republican votes to win the 217 he needs. In other words, she is not promising a single new convert.

“We’re not quite there, but we’re getting close,” said Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and co-author of the trade legislation. But Mr. Obama, he added, “needs to deliver some votes. It’s just that clear.”

The president needs the authority to finish up the Pacific accord, the largest trade deal in a generation, linking 12 nations — including Canada and Chile in the Americas, and Japan and Australia across the Pacific — in a pact that would not just further cut generally low tariffs on goods but also put in place investment rules for roughly 40 percent of the global economy. The White House says, moreover, that the deal is an essential element in America’s strategic posture in Asia vis-à-vis the rising power of China.

Most congressional Democrats are skeptical. They argue that since the North American Free Trade Agreement was approved in 1993, such accords have only hastened the flow of manufacturing jobs overseas and pressured wages downward through international competition. Corporations, their executives and shareholders have prospered, but globalization has helped hollow out the middle class, many Democrats say.

By contrast, most Republicans conceptually side with President Obama <https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/cea_trade_report_final_non-embargoed_v2.pdf>, contending that the forces of globalization are inevitable and that trade deals like the T.P.P. will help open foreign markets to American goods and services. They support the White House’s effort to forge deals that protect intellectual property from theft and promote investor rights through strong international rules, which are seen as crucial to expanding opportunities for a wide range of American industries, including aircraft, entertainment, pharmaceuticals and insurance.

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But in the current hyperpartisan atmosphere of Washington, concept does not necessarily translate to votes. Many of the most conservative Republicans simply do not want to give this president anything.

Representative Dave Brat, a Virginia Republican who was an economics professor before he upset <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/us/politics/david-brat-waged-solo-fight-against-eric-cantor.html?_r=0> the former House majority leader Eric Cantor last year, said trade was good and tariffs were bad. But he is still furious that Mr. Obama tried to use an executive order to stop the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the United States illegally.

“We just got through with an end-run around the Constitution,” he said, fuming. “I’m leaning heavy no.”

Representative Gary Palmer of Alabama, another conservative Republican freshman, said he liked the idea of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But, he added, “If the president won’t abide by the Constitution, what gives you any confidence he’ll abide by T.P.P.?”

Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, echoed those fears. “As a rule, conservatives are free-traders. I’m a free-trader,” he said. “But we have a president who for every inch of authority we give, he takes a mile.”

Even Donald Trump has waded into the debate, blasting Congress for empowering the president and insufficiently addressing the issue of currency manipulation by some of America’s trading partners.

“Free trade only works if you have smart leaders and great negotiators,” he said in an unsolicited telephone interview on Friday. “We’re checkers players against grandmaster negotiators.”

Republican leaders say such voices represent a fringe in the party. After all, trade promotion has been embraced by longstanding conservative voices like the anti-tax gadfly Grover Norquist and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. But they cannot afford to lose much of that fringe, given the firm Democratic position.

With organized labor, environmental groups and liberal advocacy organizations like MoveOn.org opposed to the bill, Democratic leaders say they are in no position to deliver votes for Republican leaders, even if their own standard-bearer in the White House is adamantly behind the measure as well. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. began running attack ads <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq5_1UlDi3A> against one Democrat, Representative Ami Bera of California, who came out for trade promotion authority and who has twice used union muscle to eke out narrow victories in his swing district. Less pointed pressure ads <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtQPg-ZRfWo&feature=youtu.be> are going up in 17 other Democratic districts.

“It doesn’t make any sense for our members to make a career-changing vote” to let Republican members off the hook, a senior Democratic leadership aide said.

That has Republicans — and the president — in a bind. Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said that as written, the trade promotion legislation lets Congress “turn off” fast-track approval if a trade deal comes back having failed to meet the standards demanded in the bill.

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But in reality, he said, the process for shutting down fast-track is so byzantine, it is nearly impossible to do. Such a resolution would first have to go through the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee, which tend to be pro-trade, before it could be considered by the House and Senate. Mr. Jordan and a handful of like-minded colleagues plan to amend the trade bill to make it easier for Congress to halt fast-track.

“I understand economics. I understand comparative advantage. I understand livestock producers in Ohio who want to sell pork in Japan,” said an exasperated Mr. Jordan, whose vote could influence a dozen or more conservatives. “But I’ve got a real problem here.”

Mr. Ryan, the manager of the bill, said there was no way he could allow such an amendment. That would make the House’s trade bill different from the Senate’s, prompt a negotiating conference between the chambers and force both to have to vote all over again.

“If we go to conference, that would kill T.P.A.,” Mr. Ryan said, referring to fast-track authority.

That could mean it will be up to the president. Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Democrat of New York and one of Mr. Obama’s main vote getters, said port-city Democrats and Congressional Black Caucus members could make all the difference.

Republican leaders have told wavering conservatives that trade promotion is not about trusting President Obama. It is about putting strict guidelines and demands on trade negotiations upfront. Besides, they say, the trade promotion authority bill would last three years, with an option for a three-year extension, well beyond this president’s final term.

Mr. Meeks’s explanation to African-American lawmakers is the opposite: Conservatives, out of spite, are trying to deny the first black president the same trade authority every modern president but Richard M. Nixon has enjoyed.

“There are some folks who aren’t doing things on merits,” Mr. Meeks said. “It’s to deny this president.”

That pitch is running into a wall of union leaders and liberal activists who want Democrats to stand firm. Activists delivered cotton swabs to Mr. Bera’s office over the break to tell him to clean out his ears. They delivered screws to the office of Representative Mike Quigley, a pro-trade Democrat from Illinois, supposedly representing jobs lost because of unfair trade practices. Signs have sprouted up around the Portland, Ore., district of Representative Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat, criticizing his support of the bill.

“These are tough, tough debates, the passion, the politics,” said Representative Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, who has tried to round up more votes for the president. “Outside of an authorization of military force, votes probably don’t get tougher than trade.”


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/05/31/us/politics/ap-us-obama-trade.html?emc=eta1&_r=0 <http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/05/31/us/politics/ap-us-obama-trade.html?emc=eta1&_r=0>

Obama's Trade Agenda Faces Tougher Odds Heading Into House
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS     MAY 31, 2015, 8:55 A.M. E.D.T.

WASHINGTON — After several near death experiences in the Senate, the trade agenda that President Barack Obama is pushing as a second term capstone faces its biggest hurdle yet in the more polarized House.

Anti-trade forces have struggled to ignite public outrage over Obama's bid to enact new free-trade agreements, but Democratic opposition in Congress remains widespread.

The outcome may turn on Republicans' willingness to hand the president a major win in his final years in office. Underscoring the difficulties, House leaders are looking at the second or third week of June to schedule a vote, even though House members return from recess on Monday.

"The business of bill passing is a messy, sausage-making process. It was in the Senate, and it certainly will be in the House," White House communications director Jen Psaki said in an interview. "There will be many moments where there will be difficult issues. We have our eyes wide open with that.”

At issue is legislation that would give Obama parameters for the trade deals he negotiates but also speed up congressional review of the final agreements by giving lawmakers the right to approve or reject deals, but not change them.

Obama is seeking this "fast track" authority to complete a 12-nation Trans-Pacific trade deal that spans the Pacific rim from Chile to Vietnam. He and trade backers say it will open huge markets to U.S. goods by lowering tariffs and other trade barriers. Critics, labor and environmental groups in particular, argue that new trade agreements will cost jobs and that past agreements have not lived up to labor and environmental standards.

Supporters and opponents of fast track count about 20 House Democrats in favor with fewer than a dozen still on the fence. Proponents of the bill say they need at least 25 Democrats and preferably closer to 30 to counter the 40 to 50 Republicans who are expected to vote against it in the GOP-controlled House.

The fast-track legislation squeezed through the Senate, coupled with a package of federal assistance for workers displaced by free trade agreements that helped secure Democratic votes. That aid measure, called Trade Adjustment Assistance, has emerged as a particularly tricky component because it's a priority for Democrats, but many Republicans oppose it and insist on publicly voting against it.

One House leadership option is to "divide the question" on the Senate-passed bill. That would allow separate votes on fast-track and TAA.

Presumably an overwhelming number of Republicans, and just enough Democrats, would vote for fast-track. And TAA would pass with heavy Democratic support and enough help from Republicans. That would ultimately leave the Senate bill intact and clear the way for Obama's signature.

Some Democrats, however, have raised the possibility of voting heavily against TAA to sabotage their main target, fast track. And many are unhappy that the assistance package would be partly funded by cuts in Medicare <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>'s growth.

"There's a lot of unease in the Democratic caucus — and explicit opposition — to Congress paying for trade adjustment assistance with Medicare savings," Bill Samuel, the legislative director for the AFL-CIO, said in an interview. "If Republicans are counting on Democrats to put it over the top, they may not be right about that.”

If the trade assistance measure survives, the fast-track measure would still be in jeopardy.

"There's overwhelming opposition in the Democratic caucus," Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a leading opponent of Obama's trade bill, said in an interview. GOP leaders "are in a bind," she said. "If they had the votes, they'd be moving.”

DeLauro said "dividing the question" is only one of several options House leaders are considering. "Every option leads to more problems," she said, "because this is a bad bill.”

At the White House, officials say Obama might rely less on the public speeches and high-profile interviews that characterized the drive toward the Senate vote and focus more on targeted lobbying to retain Democratic supporters and win over any remaining fence sitters.

The White House has been especially impressed by the efforts of House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who has worked to persuade conservatives who are reluctant to give a Democratic president fast track authority. Ryan has written opinion pieces with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a darling of the conservative movement, in support of trade and has courted other conservative leaders to back fast track.

On the Democratic side, labor has made opposition to trade a priority, and the AFL-CIO has frozen its political action committee contributions to lawmakers until after the trade votes. During the Memorial Day congressional recess, a coalition of fast track opponents aired ads in 17 Democratic congressional districts criticizing the legislation and calling for its defeat.

But those efforts are running up against a more muddled public view of trade. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 58 percent of those surveyed, including a majority of Democrats, say free trade agreements have been good for the U.S. Moreover, when Pew asked Americans to list their top priorities for the president and Congress this year, global trade ranked 23rd.

"The people who don't normally pay attention to campaigns probably aren't going to be showing up to vote on this," Jason Stanford of the Coalition to Stop Fast Track conceded. "But what is important for these members to note is that the same people who were knocking on doors for them last time are opposing this now. They are turning that important base of support into a really dedicated opposition. And that's not how anyone wants to run for re-election."


http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-seeks-rare-business-support-1433113453

Obama Seeks Rare Business Support
Major American companies lend backing for Trans-Pacific Partnership
 
William Mauldin
May 31, 2015 7:04 p.m. ET
 
President Barack Obama <http://topics.wsj.com/person/O/Barack-Obama/4328>, who frequently has tussled with corporate America, now is relying heavily on an array of large U.S. companies to help enact a major Pacific trade deal.
 
From Hollywood studios to drug makers and manufacturers, such as Caterpillar <http://quotes.wsj.com/CAT> Inc., CAT -0.80 %  <http://quotes.wsj.com/CAT>some major American companies are lending key support in the complicated push to negotiate the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership and to win votes in Congress. The administration’s trade quest faces an uphill battle in the House, starting this week.
 
“Our interests on this issue are aligned,” said Myron Brilliant, executive vice president and head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We welcome that engagement. We wish we had gotten it sooner, but it’s better now than never.”
 
For the Obama administration, the new corporate détente marks a shift from prior political battles, when large companies and banks joined Republicans in seeking to defeat the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, with some also opposing the Affordable Care Act.
 
Mr. Obama and corporations have been at odds during his two presidential terms on the administration’s approach to regulation, taxes and legislative changes affecting industries.
 
In December 2009, less than a year into his first term, Mr. Obama drew ire from Wall Street when he referred to them as “fat cat bankers.” The relationship with businesses in general has remained strained since then.
 
Companies have pushed back, at times with litigation, on administration regulations affecting a number of industries. Among them are signature Obama initiatives on climate change, including an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to cut carbon emissions. 
 
The newfound alliance between the White House and big business also is drawing criticism from labor unions, Democrats and conservative lawmakers suspicious of corporate interests, and even left-leaning economists previously supportive of lifting trade barriers.
 
“The administration is in bed with the multinational corporations,” said Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, one of Mr. Obama’s fiercest critics on trade.
 
A White House official said Mr. Obama has the support of a wide coalition on this issue, including businesses of all sizes, state and local leaders, and environmental and other groups. 
 
Mr. Obama and his team also are emphasizing the potential upside of the Pacific agreement for small businesses. Certain tariff breaks, the removal of red tape at the border and the lifting of the amount of goods that can be shipped duty free are among the benefits cited.
 
In perhaps his most overt nod to corporate interests in the trade fight, Mr. Obama in May delivered a speech defending the TPP at Nike <http://quotes.wsj.com/NKE> Inc.,NKE -0.62 %  <http://quotes.wsj.com/NKE>which is lobbying more intently on the issue than any other U.S. company, according to lobbying disclosures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
 
“All the suppliers to Nike or Boeing <http://quotes.wsj.com/BA> BA -1.27 %  <http://quotes.wsj.com/BA>or G.E. or any of these other companies understand this is going to be critical to their growth and their ability to create new jobs,” Mr. Obama said at Nike’s Beaverton, Ore., headquarters.
 
Some large U.S.-focused manufacturers, however, are against the TPP deal.
 
Ford Motor Co. has been critical of the trade agreement, which would reduce U.S. tariffs on Japanese cars over time. Executives from the Detroit auto maker have pressed lawmakers on Capitol Hill to include rules to punish alleged currency manipulation overseas.

Blue-chip companies and their defenders contend it’s natural that they’re engaged in fighting for the Trans-Pacific Partnership as well as “fast track” legislation needed to expedite the deal because they have so much at stake as the country’s leading importers and exporters.
“Even in a perfect world, this is a heavy lift politically,” said Bill Lane, Caterpillar’s global governmental affairs director.
 
Recently, Boeing Co. hosted Secretary of State John Kerry for a speech backing the Pacific deal as well as the renewal of the Export-Import Bank, which helps fund purchases of Boeing aircraft. 
 
Two days later the company’s chief executive, Jim McNerney <http://topics.wsj.com/person/M/Jim-McNerney/712>, visited Capitol Hill as lawmakers sought to tie its renewal to the trade legislation.
 
Mr. Lane, who lobbies lawmakers on Capitol Hill, says Caterpillar saw its exports to Chile triple two or three years after it enacted a trade agreement with the U.S., buoyed by better access to the Chilean mining-equipment market as well as higher prices for copper.
 
The following day, the Senate voted to approve fast track, which would help negotiators conclude the TPP and expedite congressional approval of the deal, with no amendments allowed.
 
The legislation now faces a difficult path in the House, where many Republicans are skeptical of fast track and few Democrats support the measure.
 
After Nike, pharmaceutical companies led by Pfizer <http://quotes.wsj.com/PFE> Inc. PFE 0.90 %  <http://quotes.wsj.com/PFE>are among the most active entities lobbying on the TPP issue, according to the filings. Drug maker executives and industry groups traveled to the most recent round of TPP negotiations in Guam in late May to back stronger intellectual-property protections in the TPP, a major unresolved issue.
 
Pfizer is backing U.S. trade representative Michael Froman, a former Citigroup Inc. executive, as he seeks to negotiate rules that would protect potentially lucrative biologic drugs made from living cells, blood components and tissue from imitators for up to 12 years, or far longer than the current protection in most TPP countries.
 
Hollywood studios are also pushing for stronger intellectual property rules in the TPP, and big insurers and other financial firms are eyeing greater access in fast-growing Asia. Leading business groups regularly meet with administration officials on the deal, Mr. Brilliant said.
 
The corporate push that helped the legislation in the Senate won’t necessarily have the same force in the House. “For most House Republicans, they’re not as sympathetic to the large multinationals like, Boeing and G.E., unless you happen to have one of those in your district,” said Rep. Charles Boustany (R., La.), who is working to build support for fast track.
 
Instead, the Obama administration and Republicans leaders are relying in part on farmers and farm groups to buttress support in rural congressional districts.
 
Write to William Mauldin at william.mauldin at wsj.com <mailto:william.mauldin at wsj.com>

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