WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Tuesday vote in the U.S. Senate could clear the way for passage of the Trade Promotion Authority, the measure that would give President Barack Obama and the next president six years total of fast-track authority for negotiations on trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“We’ve lost 31,000 manufacturing jobs since NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement),” U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Monday’s MetroNews “Talkline” of his opposition to the proposal.
“If you’re going to have a wealth of an economy and you’re going to have a vibrant economy, you have to make things.”
During a U.S. Senate vote in May, Manchin voted against the bill while U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) supported it.
At that time, Capito said, it represented “a balanced approach to trade and creates new opportunities to export West Virginia-made goods and services” and gave “the American people – through their member of Congress – a strong voice in trade negotiations for years to come.”
With the fast-track authority, Congress would still have oversight for any final trade deal, but could not make changes. Also, the contents of the deal would not be disclosed publicly during negotiations.
“This trade deal and the conditions of how it’s going to be governed is more secretive than the Iran nuclear deal,” Manchin said. “I’m not going to, basically, negate my responsibilities and not be able to oversee some of these conditions that they’re going to be operating under.”
In May, Manchin joined U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in introducing the Trade Transparency Act, which would require the release of the negotiated text of any trade agreement 60 days prior to approval for fast-track authority.
A cloture vote on the U.S. House version of the fast-track bill from the U.S. Senate was scheduled for Tuesday morning with final passage possibly by Wednesday.
It’s one of several pieces of trade legislation that could come out of the U.S. Senate this week.