WASHINGTON (AP) — Working closely with the White House, the Republican-controlled House revived President Barack Obama's trade agenda on Thursday, voting to strengthen his hand in global negotiations and clearing the way for a showdown in the Senate.
The 218-208 vote marked the first step in a bipartisan rescue operation mounted in the week since labor-backed Democrats in the House rebelled against the president and derailed the legislation he seeks. Additionally, a companion bill to provide federal aid for workers harmed by imports awaits action in both houses in the coming days.
"Ninety-five percent of the world's consumers don't live in America, they live in other countries," said Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Republican point man in the effort to push bipartisan trade bills across the finish line. "And if we want to make more things here and sell them there then we need to tear down those trade barriers that make them more expensive."
Democrats fought the legislation, as they have for months, for fear it would lead to the loss of U.S. jobs overseas. "Let's kill this donkey once and for all," said Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md.
The administration's immediate negotiating objective is a round of talks involving 12 countries in Asia, North America and South America.
The vote was close but not suspenseful to give Obama the ability to approve trade deals that Congress can accept or reject, but not change. A total of 28 Democrats supported the legislation, the same number as on an initial vote last week. Other recent presidents have had the same prerogative Obama seeks, known as "fast-track."
Even so, obstacles remain to completion of a plan that Obama, Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hope will send two bills to the White House by the end of next week.
The next test comes in the Senate, where support of a dozen or so pro-trade Democrats will be required to approve the stand-alone measure to enhance Obama's negotiating authority without knowing for certain that the aid for displaced workers will also make it to the president's desk.
A combined trade-aid bill passed earlier on a vote of 62-37, two more than the 60 needed.
One Republican, Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, missed the vote and is a possible supporter.
A second, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, voted against the bill last month, but that was when it included the worker assistance provisions. A spokesman, Conn Carroll, said Lee has not yet decided how he intends to vote on the stand-alone trade bill.
A total of 14 Democrats supported the measure last month and the White House is lobbying to prevent slippage.
Next, first the Senate, then the House, must pass the aid package itself. Normally, that measure would be assured of gaining overwhelming Democratic support. But in this case, opponents of the trade measure have targeted it for defeat in hopes of killing the entire package.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, told reporters she doesn't "see a path right now" for the aid package to pass, comments likely to reinforce whatever reluctance pro-trade Democrats have about putting their votes behind a stand-alone trade bill.
Boehner was quick to disagree, and said so. As for Pelosi, he said, "I think I'll just keep my comments to myself with regard to how I feel about the leader's actions."
Pelosi worked closely with Boehner last week in what had appeared to be an attempt on her part to clear a way for passage of the legislation, but joined the revolt just before a showdown on the floor.
This time, the White House, Boehner and McConnell hoped to work around her.
"We are committed to ensuring both ... get votes in the House and Senate and are sent to the president for signature," Boehner and McConnell said in a joint statement issued Wednesday in an attempt to reassure pro-trade Democrats whose votes will be needed.
Supporters of the president's agenda argue that the United States must stay involved in international trade, in part because otherwise, countries like China will write the rules to their own advantage.
Organized labor and other opponents of international trade deals say they cost thousands of American workers their jobs by shifting employment to foreign countries with low wages, poor working conditions and lax environmental standards.
Obama has not spoken in public in the past two days about the attempt to resurrect his trade bills, nor have White House officials disclosed many details of his role in putting together the rescue attempt. McConnell and Boehner both said on Tuesday that they had spoken with the president on the phone, but they offered little by way of details.
Presidential spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House on Wednesday, "The only legislative strategy that the president can support is one that will result in both pieces of legislation arriving at his desk."