Embarrassing result for Obama means the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement could die in amendment hell as senators maintain a free hand to protect pet interests in their home states. UPDATED.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement looks in peril today — or at least facing a much longer road — after the US House of Representatives knocked back a bid by President Barak Obama to expand his trade negotiating authority.
President Obama was seeking support for trade adjustment assistance (TAA), or help for workers whose jobs are displaced by trade deals. The New York Times says losing the measure has effectively torpedoed the president's bid to gain trade promotion authority (TPA) or the ability to take a trade deal like the TPP to the Senate for a straight up-and-down vote. That is, with no possibility of amendments or filibusters.
US participation in some previous trade deals has stalled or failed as senators and congressman mostly express their support for free trade, but seek to protect pet industries in their home states.
The TPP now faces the same bloated, complicated path. The Senate might ratify the trade deal only after saddling the trade deal with a ton of special-interest amendments —- which could in turn make it unpalatable to to the 11 other signatory countries, including New Zealand.
The Times reports President Obama made a "dramatic personal appeal for support" but his own party lined up against him.
Republicans in the House of Representatives (the lower house of Congress) did mostly support the measure, and narrowly passed a standalone bill that would give the president the negotiating and trade promotion authority he sought.
However, the Times says the bill can't go to the president for his signature because it clashes with a Senate (upper house) version of the same legislation that adds TAA measure — which many Republicans see as a sop to organised labour (although some held their noses and voted for it anyway in a bid to keep the TPA and TPP hopes alive).
Yesterday, in the lead up to the key vote, TPP advocate and NZ International Business Forum executive director and TTP booster Stephen Jacobi told NBR, “This is going to be a major test for the President and for the whole basis of the TPP. The numbers are therefore worrying. Clearly Mr Obama can’t control his own political party, so it’s incredibly embarrassing for him and it would be a real defeat if the TPA doesn’t go through."
Today, Mr Jacobi told NBR the TPP was "Down but not out. We need to wait a little longer to see if a procedural way can be found for fast track to get to the president's desk."
He hopes the TAA measure can be put before the House again next week, as President Obama is angling for, and this time successfully.
TPP talks began in 2005. In mid-2014, Prime Minister John Key said he was confident the TPP could be settled by the end of that year. As ever with trade deals, the reality is longer, stranger and messier — and Congress just ensured it will be even messier than anticipated. The New Yorker says nearly every constituency in the Democrat Party opposes the TPP, and the more they learn about the trade agreement, the more they oppose it.
Meantime, opponents of the TPP — who see it the negotiated-in-secret treaty as a danger to sovereignty, and a threat to everything from parallel importing to cheap generic pharmaceuticals — can take heart that US political infighting represents their last, best hope.
