WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's ambitious trade push is back on track, after several near-death moments, in large measure because top Republicans stood by him.
The Senate narrowly voted Tuesday to end debate on legislation granting Mr Obama enhanced negotiating powers to complete a major Pacific trade accord, virtually assuring final passage Wednesday of Mr Obama's top legislative priority in his final years in office.
The procedural vote of 60-37 just reached the minimum needed, but final Senate passage will require only 51 votes. The House approved trade-promotion authority last week.
With congressional support for "fast track" authority, the president can press for final agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a legacy-defining accord linking 40% of the world's economy -- from Canada and Chile to Japan and Australia -- in a web of rules governing Pacific commerce. His administration can also bear down on a second agreement with Europe -- known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership -- knowing that lawmakers will be able to vote for or against those agreements but will not be able to amend or filibuster them.
The Atlantic agreement is not expected to be completed until the next administration is in office, but the trade negotiating powers would stretch for six years - well into the next presidency. Together those two accords would put much of the globe under the same trade rules, not only lowering tariffs and other import barriers but also creating new standards for Internet access, intellectual property and investor protections.
"This is a very important day for our country," declared Sen Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, whose procedural manoeuvring was largely responsible for the outcome. "America is back in the trade business."
Most Democrats -- along with labour unions, environmental groups and liberal activists -- disagreed, saying that such trade agreements had resulted in lost manufacturing jobs and lower wages for US workers.
"It is a great day for the big money interests, not a great day for working families," said Sen Bernie Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
But 13 Democrats sided with Republicans to end the debate and get to a final vote on trade promotion authority.
Tuesday's vote was the second time the Senate had blocked a filibuster of fast-track authority, but this time the bill was sheared of a separate measure to offer enhanced retraining and educational assistance to workers displaced by international trade accords. That measure also faces a crucial vote Wednesday.
Passage of a standalone trade-promotion bill will put pressure on House Democrats, who just over a week ago brought down the worker-aid provision, known as trade-adjustment assistance, when it was linked to the fast-track legislation, in a strategic move they hoped would defeat the entire trade package.
But Republican leaders -- with support from the White House -- found a parliamentary way to corner the Democratic opponents, by separating the two pieces of the bill. By Wednesday evening, legislation will most likely be on the president's desk, giving him the power to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He can sign it whether or not the House passes worker-dislocation assistance when it is scheduled to come to a vote late Thursday.
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said House Democrats should get on board.
"The previous explanation that we heard from some Democrats who voted against trade adjustment assistance -- something that Democrats have steadfastly supported for decades -- is that they were doing that in an effort to slow down the advancement of trade-promotion authority legislation," he said. "That will no longer be a factor to consider."
Tortuous path for trade
The tortuous path of the trade legislation during the last six months created the unusual alliance between Mr Obama and Republican leaders, who otherwise have worked to thwart him on domestic and foreign policies.
President Barack Obama tours the Port of New Orleans with governor Bobby Jindal and others while discussing the importance of taking measures to grow the economy and create jobs by increasing exports in this 2013 file photo. Obama and Senate Republicans united in an effort to secure votes on legislation that would expand his trade negotiating power. (New York Times photo)
"Occasionally, even the leader of the Democratic Party, the president of the United States, gets things right," said Sen John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican.
In the end, Mr McConnell all but secured the top remaining legislative priority of a president he once vowed to turn out after one term.
The Senate is set Wednesday to give final approval to trade-promotion authority, then vote to end debate on a separate bill that attaches worker-dislocation assistance to a broadly popular bill extending a trade agreement with several African countries.
To attract more votes, Senate leaders added another provision speeding up action against foreign competitors who are found to be "dumping"-- selling steel and other products in the US at artificially low prices in an effort to put domestic manufacturers out of business.
Senators would vote on that package Thursday, and if it is approved, as expected, it would go to the House the same day.
This time, if Democrats vote down trade-adjustment assistance, they will be effectively killing a worker-education and retraining program created during the Kennedy administration and that party members have nurtured ever since but will still most likely watch Mr Obama sign the fast-track bill into law.
"I don't think any Democrats voted against TAA last time because they opposed TAA," said Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House's No. 2 Democrat. "I will concede there will be a different context" around the next vote.
At the same time, House and Senate negotiators will begin hashing out differences over a separate bill enhancing measures to police trade agreements.
Opponents had hoped that trade-promotion authority without worker assistance would run into trouble in the Senate. And some Democrats tried to stoke fears that Congress could give the president the power to complete major trade deals without assistance to affected workers.
"How shameful is that?" said Sen Sherrod Brown, who led the opposition to trade promotion authority. "We're making this decision knowing people will lose their jobs because of our actions. Yet we are not going to pass this assistance."
In the end, though, Democratic senators who had already voted once for trade-promotion authority understood they were not going to escape the criticism, especially from the unions. They wanted to be done with it.
"Senate Democrats had already taken a lot of hits in getting to this point," said Sen Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee and a co-author of the trade promotion bill.