Top Trade Lawmaker Details Political Challenges for TPP at Export Council Meeting

Fewer House lawmakers back the Trans-Pacific Partnership than supported Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation last year, and congressional TPP approval will require “a lot of political work,” House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Dave Reichert, R-Wash., told members of the President’s Export Council Sept. 14 (here). Still, progress is being made toward a resolution of lawmakers’ concerns over the pact’s biologics provisions, he said. “There are some political realities here that we all know are creating this uphill battle for us,” Reichert said. “The reality is we’ve lost some votes with some of the issues -- tobacco being one of those. Those people who voted for TPA are no longer on board with TPP.”

Congressional Republicans and Democrats will meet with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman Sept. 15 to discuss concerns about TPP and how implementation legislation might advance on Capitol Hill, Reichert said. Reichert estimated 40 House Democrats who currently support TPP, including the 28 who voted for TPA, wouldn’t be enough to push the agreement over the finish line. Meanwhile, though, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Congress are smoothing their differences over financial services and biologics provisions of the TPP, and advancing the deal is possible, Reichert said.

Reichert called for council members to educate members on the benefits of TPP and help them overcome their qualms by citing benefits the pact would bring to their districts. Citing widespread Democratic labor objections to the pact, Reichert also called on council members to use their influence to assure TPP-opposing union workers, especially longshoremen, that the pact will bring job-related improvements. During a “day of action” to advocate against holding a vote on the deal, lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., and Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., during a press conference repeated previous calls for Congress to commit to block a vote on TPP (here). A coalition of labor, environmental and religious groups joined the legislators on Capitol Hill Sept. 14 in urging Congress to oppose the pact.

Froman said more Americans support TPP than “headlines” would suggest, but acknowledged that USTR needs to do a better job of spreading word of TPP’s benefits. Delayed implementation would run the risk of countries not playing by a high-standard sanitary/phytosanitary, intellectual property rights and digital economic framework, he said.

Several business stakeholders during the council meeting continued to tout TPP’s benefits. Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris said TPP would help his company maintain the 20 percent proportion of its jobs that depend on exports, and said TPP would help sustain the U.S.’s current status as a winner in global commerce, and yield a global standards regime that will benefit “humanity.” Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson said TPP is important for the U.S. economy as well as for national security, adding that the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 37 percent of all U.S. aerospace and defense exports in 2015, and that exports from those sectors composed 9 percent of all U.S. exports last year. Separately, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Sept. 13 debuted a 12-part series making a case for TPP, to be published twice a week. In a Sept. 13 post (here), Chamber Senior Vice President for International Policy John Murphy said TPP would reinvigorate U.S. economic growth.