Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) cleared a key procedural hurdle on Tuesday, and the bill is likely to pass Congress this week, yet White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest refused to tip the administration’s hand by saying when President Obama will sign the cornerstone legislation of his trade agenda.
A final vote on TPA could come as early as Wednesday, securing a major victory for the administration as it seeks to finalize the sweeping Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement—a controversial free trade deal involving 12 Pacific rim nations that has run aground in the face of fierce opposition in Congress emanating from the President’s own party.
Despite its imminent victory, however, the White House has remained mum on when it will ink TPA into law.
“I don’t have a sequencing thing,” Earnest told reporters on Tuesday, parrying several inquiries.
At the heart of the issue is Congressional Republicans push to move TPA without companion legislation known as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). The program provides support and job-training to workers displaced by trade liberalization, and has assisted more than two million Americans since it’s 1974 creation. It expires at the end of September, and although Republicans generally oppose TAA, they’ve worked with the White House to use its reauthorization to make TPA more politically palatable to Democrats.
“We anticipate that Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell will follow through on the public commitment that they made to bring TAA up for a vote promptly,” Earnest told reporters during Tuesday’s press briefing, adding that “the President has made clear that both TPA and TAA are top priorities.”
A version of TPA tethered to TAA narrowly passed a full Senate vote in May. That package fell apart last week, however, after Republican leadership held two separate votes on the bills. House Democrats voted down TAA—a program they’ve long supported—in hopes of killing TPA.
It worked, but only temporarily. The two bills were cleaved again, and the House then passed a stand-alone TPA bill.
While a handshake agreement among Congressional leaders is supposed to lead to votes on a stand-alone TAA bill, Obama could potentially threaten to withhold his signature if Republicans fail to live up to their promise.
That strategy, however, could leave the administration’s left flank vulnerable if the coalition of House Democrats who defeated TAA last week believed they could force a presidential veto on TPA by withholding support for worker assistance. Earnest, however, intoned that any executive branch rejection of TPA is highly unlikely.
“That would be akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face,” Earnest said, assessing the hypothetical progressive attack on TPA, in response to a reporter’s question about the possibility.
The spokesman did, however, envision a scenario that could give the White House leverage in the showdown, but only if the Senate acts on TAA first. If the upper chamber passes the legislation, President Obama could likely sign TPA and then lean on House Democrats to reauthorize aid for the workers who will be displaced as a result of its impact.
“There no longer is a legislative process for them to slow down,” Earnest said. “The legislative process for TPA will have been completed.”
