The New York Times reports: “Congressional Republican leaders and White House officials on Monday explored ways to resurrect trade legislation that stalled last week when House Democrats objected and dealt President Obama an embarrassing defeat at the hands of his own party. In meetings at the Capitol and in telephone conversations with Mr. Obama and administration officials, lawmakers ticked through a list of complicated procedural options that could circumvent House Democratic opposition to granting the president the power to expedite trade deals.”
PATRICK WOODALL, pwoodall at fwwatch.org @foodandwater
Woodall is research director and senior policy advocate for Food & Water Watch. See their resources on fast track, including a video on how the Trans Pacific Partnership hurts American families: foodandwaterwatch.org/global/global-trade/fast-track-and-tpp.
Woodall said today: “The corporate trade agenda is stalled in Congress. After a stinging defeat last week on one provision of the fast track trade package on worker retraining, the House considered re-voting on that measure as early as today. Both the worker retraining and fast track trade procedure had to pass identically to the Senate measure for the package to go to the president’s desk to become law. But last night the Republican leadership realized they could not win a re-vote on the worker protection provisions and decided to extend the time they could reconsider this measure until the end of July. By extending the re-vote period by six weeks, the GOP leadership and the White House gave themselves time to work their parliamentary witchcraft, arm-twisting and gift-giving to cajole Congress into caving into the corporate trade agenda. But the delay shows that there is not Congressional will to walk the plank for a corporate trade agenda that is reviled by the voters. Congress is listening to the public and recognizes the TPP and other trade deals pose genuine risks to consumers, workers and the environment.”
