US Senate advances key trade measure

WASHINGTON: The US Senate on Monday advanced a key trade measure seen as critical to the eventual passing of stalled free trade deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.

President Barack Obama and his Republican foes agree that approving the three agreements will spur job growth in the US economy, which has been struggling with 9.1 percent unemployment.

But Obama and his Democrat allies have also called for renewing an aid package, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), for US workers hurt by overseas competition, before passing the three pacts.

On Monday, senators voted 84-8 to move forward with a broad, House-passed trade measure, known as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), to which Democrats plan to attach TAA before sending the bill back to the House.

It was unclear exactly what the next step after that would be: Obama could submit the three accords for congressional approval or wait for House passage of the GSP legislation with the TAA amendment.

But enough Republicans are expected to back the worker aid package that it should win approval.

The three agreements are also expected to clear the divided US Congress, despite opposition from lawmakers who represent hard-hit US states fearful that more overseas competition could mean higher US joblessness.

"I do not like the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the Korea Free Trade Agreement, or the Panama Free Trade Agreement. I will vote against them," Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said last week.

"But I have been asked on numerous occasions to move these trade matters to the floor. And that's what I've agreed to do," he said.

"We're going to do the trade adjustment assistance, and then, with a few other stops in the middle, we're going to do the free trade agreements," Reid predicted.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011