Republican Senators Say USTR Asked for Help in Lobbying House Dems

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would like some help from the Senate to move the House toward ratifying the new NAFTA, he said while speaking at the Senate Republicans' lunch about prospects for ratification and the work he's doing to get a trade deal done with Japan. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Lighthizer told them to convince colleagues in the House to support it. "It was just cheerleading, 'rah, rah, sis boom bah,'" Kennedy complained. "I hope I'm wrong, but I don't understand why my colleagues think that Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi's going to agree to anything that will help the president. But I mean, I wish she would put the country first, but if you believe in watching what people do, not what they say, I'm not encouraged."

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said: "A lot of the discussion we had over there today was how to move the replacement for NAFTA forward, trying to get it through the House and get Speaker Pelosi to agree to move forward with it." Rounds said Lighthizer did not talk about a timeline for sending implementing legislation or getting a vote scheduled in the House, where it must begin. "Just as soon as possible," Rounds said.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said that Lighthizer said that the NAFTA rewrite "is a good agreement for some of the things [Democrats] really stand for," such as labor rights and environmental protection. "I think it's a marked improvement on NAFTA. Right now he's just engaging in retail politics with people he knows on the committees, and urged us to do the same."

Senate leadership, speaking at a press conference after the lunch May 21, was upbeat about the prospects of passage. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said that the administration's move to lift Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico "helps clear the passage of that here in the Senate, and hopefully build some momentum to get it through the House."

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., noted that there are more Missouri businesses that buy steel and aluminum to make their products than there are steel mills or aluminum smelters. "Frankly, the impact on our economy of that tariff has been pretty significant. It's also been significant on farmers as they look for machine replacements, as they look for repairs -- all of those prices are going up." He said removing the tariffs gave ratification momentum it didn't have before in both chambers. "It's an improvement over NAFTA, and hopefully House and Senate members will all see that," he said.

Lighthizer also touched on Japan trade talks, which are particularly important to Republicans in the Senate, who have many farming constituents.

Rounds said Lighthizer didn't share any of his strategy on how to convince Japan to grant U.S. agricultural producers the same level of access they would have had if the U.S. had stayed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. U.S. farmers are losing sales to Canada and Australia because those countries now can sell commodities at lower tariff rates. "They're working on it, and they believe they're having good discussions," he said.