Agricultural News
House Ways and Means Committee to Try Mock Markup of FTAs Minus TAA
Wed, 06 Jul 2011 06:01:06 CDT
The House Ways and Means Committee will try this Thursday to do something the Senate Finance Committee could not accomplish last week- get a quorum together to hold a mock markup for the three pending U.S. trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. The Senate Finance committee tried last week but Republican members boycotted the meeting. The Republicans, led by Utah Senator Orin Hatch, were protesting the inclusion of legislative language that renews Trade Adjustment Assistance.
The Ways and Means Committee plans to review the Free Trade Deals without TAA in the mix- and that upsets the Obama Administration.
U. S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk welcomes the House effort. Kirk says, - this is an important step forward in the process of approval of the agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. However, Kirk noted that without TAA, the effort is - at odds with the Administration's stated intentions for advancing a package that includes both the free-trade agreements and assistance for workers adversely impacted by trade.
Kirk says the Administration remains committed to advancing the renewal of a robust Trade Adjustment Assistance program and is making available to the House Ways and Means Committee legislative language that renews Trade Adjustment Assistance, along with measures to implement the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement, as well as implementing legislation for trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.
The U.S. pork industry says the failure of Congress to ratify languishing free trade deals, especially one with Korea, by last Friday when an EU-Korea deal took effect - will have real consequences. The U.S. will now have to play catch-up with the Europeans on pork exports to South Korea after their free trade agreement with Seoul took effect July 1st. Click here for a backgrounder from the National Pork Producers Council on the importance of the Korean trade pact to the pork industry.
Click on the LISTEN BAR below for an audio update on the Pork industry's concerns about lack of movement on the Korean FTA.
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