For all the dispute over the TPP plank in the Democratic Party platform, it’s beginning to look as if it will not get a vote in Congress this year, including in the lame duck session when people thought it might pass. And if Dems win the Senate, maybe not next year. Like Keystone Pipeline, there is a chance it will not happen. Or at least, not in its current form.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday cast deep doubt on winning approval for President Obama’s trade agenda during his last weeks in office, suggesting that it will be up to the next occupant of the Oval Office to determine the direction of trade policy.
Acknowledging publicly what had become increasingly clear in private, McConnell said that the presidential campaign had produced a political climate that made it virtually impossible to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the “lame duck” session after the November elections.
“The chances are pretty slim that we’d be looking at that this year,” McConnell told reporters at his weekly press briefing.
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Moreover, the incoming Democratic leader, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), pledged to not allow the trade pact in its current form to come up for a vote if his party wins enough seats in November to make him majority leader next year.
“I think we need to dramatically readdress how we talk about and what we do about trade, OK. It’s not working,” Schumer said, distinguishing his views from Trump’s support for unilateral abandonment of already existing trade pacts. “I don’t support what Trump has suggested, but we need a revamp of that issue. It is not working.”
WaPo: Obama’s trade agenda losing critical support as McConnell calls TPP passage unlikely
We need to redouble our efforts against the TPP to make sure, but this is a good sign.