[Infowarrior] - Obama puts Congress on notice: TPP is coming

[Richard Forno]

Obama puts Congress on notice: TPP is coming

By Adam Behsudi

08/12/16 10:23 AM EDT

Updated 08/12/16 04:22 PM EDT

The White House put Congress on notice Friday morning that it will be sending lawmakers a bill to implement President Barack Obama’s landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement — a move intended to infuse new energy into efforts to ratify the flat-lining trade pact.

The move establishes a 30-day minimum before the administration can present the legislation, but the White House is unlikely to do so amid the heated rhetoric of a presidential campaign in which both major party nominees have depicted free trade deals as massive job killers.

Friday's notification is the clearest signal yet that the White House is serious about getting Obama’s legacy trade deal — the biggest in U.S. history — passed by the end of the year, as he has vowed to do despite the misgivings of Republican leaders and the outright opposition of a majority of Democrats in Congress.

Striking a defiant tone, Obama predicted at a press conference last week that the economic centerpiece of his strategic pivot to Asia would pass in the lame-duck session, saying he’d like to sit down with lawmakers after the election to discuss the "actual facts" behind the deal, rather than toss it around like a "political football."

"We are part of a global economy. We're not reversing that," Obama said, describing the necessity of international supply chains and the importance of the export sector to U.S. jobs and the economy. "The notion that we're going to pull that up root and branch is unrealistic."

The notification, a new requirement of the trade promotion authority legislation Congress passed last year to expedite passage of the Asia-Pacific pact, is “meant to ensure early consultations between the administration and Congress,” Matt McAlvanah, a spokesman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said in a statement. “As such, the draft SAA [Statement of Administrative Action] was sent today in order to continue to promote transparency and collaboration in the TPP process.”

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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/obama-congress-trade-warning-226952

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