On Friday night of Memorial Day weekend, the U.S. Senate passed the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act, better known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), by a vote of 62-38. In light of what appeared to be formidable opposition pressing difficult demands that could have seriously prolonged the Senate TPA debate or derailed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations altogether, passage of the bill in relatively short order is a credit to the commitment of Majority Leader McConnell, Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, and Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden to getting it done. But proponents of the trade agenda still have a long road ahead.
When Congress reconvenes next week, debate and consideration of a similar TPA bill will be one of the first orders of business in the House of Representatives. Getting to 218 votes will test the persuasive powers of Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, Speaker John Boehner, and President Obama, who will need to woo Democratic support without losing Republican support in the process. The goal is to pass TPA in a form that is sufficiently similar to the Senate version to avoid the need to reconcile different versions in conference, which would necessitate a second vote in the House.
Meanwhile, with trade negotiators seeing some progress on TPA, the TPP talks appear to have begun to move into the “end-game” phase. Although it is uncertain how long this phase of the negotiation might last – because it remains unclear how many issues are outstanding, how much distance there is between the parties, and whether unexpected demands requiring alterations to previously settled parts of the agreement will be made – it is now evident that the soonest Congress could vote to implement the TPP is early 2016, with the distinct and growing possibility that the matter will fall to a lame duck Congress and president or, even, to the next president and the 115th Congress.
Stay tuned for an analysis that fleshes out some of the issues likely to affect the direction and outcome of the trade agenda, including some possible hurdles and other twists and turns in the road.