WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats dealt a stinging blow to President Barack Obama Tuesday by stalling legislation that would grant him authority to fast-track international trade deals.

Democrats, including several who favor Obama's trade agenda, banded together to prevent the Senate from considering legislation that grants the president so-called Trade Promotion Authority, which would bar Congress from amending or filibustering any trade agreements negotiated by the administration. The measure received 52 supporters, short of the 60 needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Forty-five senators voted against the plan.

The fast-track authority is seen as essential to passing the mammoth Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secretive trade deal with 11 other Asian-Pacific countries, and the equally large Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe. Obama's failure to obtain fast-track authority at the hands of a filibuster led by members of his own party follows a bitter public feud between Obama and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) over his trade agenda. Republican leaders in the House and Senate support both TPA and TPP.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged Democrats to vote to begin debate on the controversial trade legislation, indicating he'd be open to allowing separate votes on three other trade bills that Democrats do want to see passed.

"I'm confident that an enduring agreement can be found if the Senate is allowed to work its will and debate openly," McConnell said, adding that he aims to marry TPA to Trade Adjustment Assistance -- a program that provides job training and financial aid to workers who lose their jobs from international trade. "We can't debate any of the provisions senators want to consider if they vote to filibuster even getting on this bill. So I'm calling on colleagues to prove they're serious about wanting to pass legislation, rather than simply looking for new and creative ways to defeat legislation."

But Democrats, including those in favor of granting Obama fast-track authority, were banding together in the final hours Tuesday with the expectation that they could cut a better deal before the debate starts. "We're telling everyone don't be a cheap date," said one Democratic aide who spoke anonymously to discuss strategy.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who co-sponsored the package of bills with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), indicated early Tuesday he wanted more than TPA and TAA to be considered.

"I would hope that the majority leader would take this morning to work with those on my side of the aisle who are supportive of trade to find a similar bipartisan approach to ensure that all four of the measures I described are actually connected," Wyden said on the Senate floor.

With nearly an hour before the vote, Wyden and a substantial faction of pro-trade Democrats walked out of a meeting and said they'd vote against bringing the bill to the floor for debate, making it clear that McConnell would not have the votes necessary.

Similarly, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she plans to support TPP, citing its ability to boost exports for California, but that she would vote against fast-track authority because of it lacks a way to enforce the treaty's provisions.

"All they have to do is put the enforcement part into this. And there's a good reason that you want this enforced. You don't want child labor. You don't want people working 24 hours a day. I mean, this has to be part of the agreement. So to leave it out is a concern to us," she said.

The deal is not necessarily dead. McConnell has the authority to bring the legislation back even if he loses the afternoon vote, but the bill now faces an uphill battle in the Senate and an even tougher fight in the House, where a substantial bloc of Republicans and Democrats don't back the measure.

The TPA bill had been stalled in the Senate Finance Committee for months before Obama and Hatch cut a deal with Wyden that offered a handful of concessions in exchange for Democratic votes. Those concessions, however, were not attached to the TPA bill itself, but packaged into three other pieces of legislation that cleared the committee during the same hearing in late April. Moving all four as separate bills would give Obama and Republican leaders opportunities to torpedo those provisions without taking down the TPA bill.

McConnell, by stripping the enforcement measure and declining to do the trade agreements together, lost the support of Democrats who otherwise supported TPA. McConnell wants the trade deal to pass, but in the short term at least may have preferred a round of headlines focused on Democratic in-fighting. "Maybe he wanted to kill it," said Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.).

Hatch acknowledged on the Senate floor that the bill that carries many of the concessions had been decoupled from TPA vote to prevent the currency manipulation provision authored by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) from being included in the package.

"Everybody knew that putting the Schumer amendment on the one bill would not be acceptable in the House and would not be acceptable to the president," Hatch said.

Many Republicans remain ideologically opposed to TAA, making it an obvious target should it receive a stand-alone vote. Other Democratic priorities were attached to a customs bill that many believed was destined to be dismembered. Two of those concessions remain controversial: One, a ban on imports of goods manufactured with child labor, is opposed by many Republicans; the other, which would require the Commerce Department to take action on currency manipulation, is opposed by Obama. Democrats also want to see the African Growth and Opportunity Act included in the TPA vote.

The Democratic blockade of the measure intensifies a long-simmering conflict with the president, who has made securing trade deals a key element of his legacy and his final two years in office.

The president and backers of the effort say it will open more markets for U.S. goods, level the playing field for American manufacturers, and serve as a check on China's global advance. And they argue the Obama administration has figured out how to solve the problems of the much-maligned North American Free Trade Agreement.

"Most people don't realize that we actually fixed a lot of what was wrong with NAFTA in the course of this," said Sen. Tom Carper (Del.), one of the few Democrats to stick with Obama on the vote. "We need to be negotiating in the present, in the present tense, and not the past."

But many Democrats and some Republicans fear the TPP in particular will facilitate currency manipulation by foreign competitors, erode labor and environmental standards at home and abroad, and shrink domestic jobs for the middle-class. The Obama administration treats the TPP negotiating texts as classified information, making it a crime for his trade critics to detail their concerns in public.

While Carper and Obama emphasize that TPP will include enforceable labor and environmental protections, both labor unions and environmental groups remain steadfastly opposed to the deal, citing lax enforcement of such trade safeguards under Obama's tenure.

Bron: Huffington Post - 12/05/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/..._n_7267600.html

Eigen Mening:

Kort samengevat is Obama's wetsvoorstel 'the Trade Bill' (trans-Atlantisch handelscontract), afgewezen. Dit kwam als een soort van shock aangezien meerdere leden van zijn eigen partij dit hebben ondersteunt. 52 waren voor terwijl er 60 nodig waren. 45 waren er tegen. Alvorens het debat begon probeerden leden uit de democratische partij onderling aan een beter akkoord te geraken. Velen (van beide partijen) hebben schrik dat zowel de economie in handen zal genomen worden door buitenlandse tegenstanders, de arbeid gaat ondermijnen en de arbeidsmarkt gaat verkleinen.

Het wonderbaarlijke is vooral dat leden van Obama's eigen partij, de democraten, tegen zijn wetsvoorstel ingaan. Dit bewijst echter weer dat aan het einde van zijn termijn Obama toch invloed begint te verliezen. Men begint te twijfelen over zijn kunnen (niet dat dit iets nieuws is). Hoewel het wetsvoorstel nog niet compleet van de kaart is, lijkt het er stilletjes aan aan te komen.