SXMElections.com

WASHINGTON--Senior U.S. lawmakers reached agreement on Thursday on a bill to give the White House "fast track" authority to negotiate a trade pact with 11 other Pacific nations that is central to President Barack Obama's strategic shift toward Asia.
  The agreement, over six months in the making, sets the stage for a tough legislative battle over the rules for Obama's proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The pact would connect a dozen economies by cutting trade barriers and harmonizing standards covering two-fifths of the world economy and a third of global trade.
  The bill gives lawmakers the right to set negotiating objectives, but would restrict them to a yes-or-no vote on trade deals such as the TPP, a potential legacy-defining achievement for President Obama.
  The Obama administration announced in late 2009 that it was entering TPP negotiations with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The U.S. Trade Representative calls the negotiation the "cornerstone" of Obama's Asia-Pacific economic policy. It also is important to U.S. manufacturers and farmers eager to expand already significant sales to the region by winning lower tariffs and other breaks.
  "Manufacturers need TPA and new market-opening trade agreements now more than ever," said Emerson Electric Co Chief Executive Officer David Farr, representing the National Association of Manufacturers.
  U.S. labour unions that are active supporters of Democratic politicians fear the deal will favour big U.S. corporations at the expense of American jobs and tougher foreign safety and environmental standards. While trade associations and companies such as Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp welcomed the move, unions immediately announced a new advertising campaign to pressure lawmakers.
  Similar arguments raged in the run-up to the 1993 congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico. Twenty-two years later there is still a debate over that deal, which badly split the Democratic Party and was passed in the House of Representatives by a narrow 234-200 vote.
  The bill also faces opposition from some conservative Republicans opposed to delegating power to the White House.
  The Obama administration has faced pressure to make progress on the TPA bill ahead of a meeting between Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on April 28 in Washington.
Japanese and U.S. officials met this week in Tokyo in a bid to strike a two-way deal giving momentum to the pact. Japanese officials have said success depends on whether the U.S. Congress approves fast-track measures to ease passage of trade deals, or trade promotion authority (TPA).
  Japan and other TPP countries have said fast-track authority would give trading partners certainty that agreements will not be picked apart. "This is a smart, bipartisan compromise that will help move America forward," Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said after leaders of Congress's tax-writing committees reached agreement on the legislation, which will be introduced in the Senate and House of Representatives.