Brady, Democrats on Collision Course Over TAA Renewal

The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee said he's hoping to have a conversation with Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., and Senate Finance Committee leaders about pairing trade agreement negotiations and renewing Trade Adjustment Assistance -- but Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said he won't support TAA in the China bill without "real substantive commitments" from the administration that it intends to negotiate for market access abroad.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has repeatedly thrown cold water on the idea of negotiating for a traditional trade agreement that would lower tariffs or other trade barriers in the U.S. and in the trading partner on the other side of the table. The Indo-Pacific Economic Forum, which President Joe Biden is traveling to Asia this week to launch, isn't such a trade deal. Brady said he will be curious to see how the Asian countries respond to this approach. "I think the framework is a dialogue on certain sectors but certainly doesn't have the kind of enforceable commitments that really make a successful trade agreement work," he said.

The New Democrat Coalition supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which never came up for a vote in Congress; the IPEF is seen as a replacement for it, of a sort. New Dems President Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., who is also a Ways and Means Committee member negotiating to bridge differences between the House and Senate China packages, said her caucus wants to make sure "we have a strong, bipartisan bill."

"We have a great sense of urgency about getting this across the finish line, because we don't start getting chips manufacturing, we don't start addressing supply chain issues until you get the bill done," she told International Trade Today at the Capitol May 18.

She reiterated that trade adjustment assistance is really important to her caucus: "We're going to continue to push there, and work with the Senate." When asked if Republicans and Democrats could find common ground on changes to trade remedies laws, or to de minimis, she said, "I think that we're just beginning the conversation, so we'll see if we can find agreement."

Brady has said that he opposes changes to de minimis, which he says would be inflationary, and that any changes to trade remedies law need to go through a more thorough vetting and amendment process in committee. He said he's looking to "substantially change" the House trade title, which he called harmful.

He said he looks forward to working with Ways and Means' Neal, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Finance's ranking Republican, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, to "see if we can’t find some substantive common ground on trade."