Breakthrough on trade could clear way for vote

WASHINGTON — The White House and congressional lawmakers neared a breakthrough in the long-stalled effort to finalize coveted free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama — pacts President Barack Obama has hailed as a boon for the U.S. economy.

Key lawmakers from both parties agreed Tuesday to work on an agreement to extend aid for American workers displaced by foreign trade. The White House, acknowledging concerns from labor unions, had threatened to hold up passage of the pacts unless the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, or TAA, was renewed.

The Senate Finance Committee will begin considering the trade agreements and the assistance program on Thursday. Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., plans to include TAA in the legislation on the Korea deal, the largest and most sought after of the three agreements.

But some top Republicans balked at that move. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said it was a "highly partisan decision" that "risks support for this critical job-creating trade pact in the name of a welfare program of questionable benefit at a time when our nation is broke."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he would oppose any trade deal in which the worker assistance program was embedded.

The White House has long called for the worker assistance program to be passed alongside the trade deals. The program was expanded two years ago as part of Obama's stimulus package to include aid for more displaced workers, but the expansion expired in February.

Baucus said his proposal — which makes TAA benefits available to service as well as manufacturing industries, provides money for retraining and makes affordable health care available — would be extended through the end of 2013.

Obama frequently cites passage of the three trade deals as an economic imperative for the U.S. He has touted the pacts as an opportunity to open up overseas markets to U.S. companies and make American products more attractive in the global marketplace.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday: "Now is the time to move forward with TAA and with the Korea, Colombia and Panama trade agreements."

The pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce also urged lawmakers to move quickly to pass the pacts.

"I urge members of both parties to seize a reasonable compromise and move the trade agenda forward. The time to act is now," Chamber president Tom Donohue said in a statement.

The U.S. signed the trade pacts with South Korea, Panama and Colombia in 2007 under President George W. Bush. But the then-Democratic-led Congress never brought the agreements up for vote, giving the Obama administration time to renegotiate areas it found objectionable.

U.S. trade officials spent months negotiating outstanding issues on the pacts, reaching an agreement with South Korea in December. The pact would support up to 70,000 U.S. jobs, according to the administration.

Deals were struck this spring with Panama and Colombia, though all three agreements need congressional approval before they can be implemented.

The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Sander Levin of Michigan, said Monday that he would oppose the trade agreement with Colombia if it did not include specific language committing Colombia to carry out an action plan for protecting worker rights and ending violence against union organizers.

Suppression of worker rights in Colombia has been the main reason that many Democrats, labor groups and human rights groups have opposed the Colombia deal, which according to some estimates would boost the U.S. economy by $2.5 billion a year.

Levin and others have hailed the Colombian government for taking steps to fulfill obligations outlined in the action plan and said Monday that "refusal to refer to the Action Plan on Worker Rights in the implementing language is a fatal flaw."

Two other House Democrats, George Miller of California and James McGovern of Massachusetts, added later that failure to refer to the plan in the trade bill would "be a huge blow against Colombian workers" and "erase a major piece of leverage this country had to ensure change in Colombia."