GRAPEVINE, Texas – American farm commodity groups are pressuring Congress to reinstate presidential fast track negotiating authority that expired on July 1, 2007.
Wheat, corn and soybean growers are frustrated by the time it takes for free trade agreements to wend their way through the House and the Senate, the two arms of the U.S. Congress.
They are calling for reauthorization of the Trade Promotion Authority, which allows the U.S. president to negotiate trade pacts and limits Congress to voting yes or no on the deal.
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In the absence of such presidential authority, Congress has been amending agreements and using its filibuster powers to delay passage of a number of key agricultural pacts.
“You always get somebody that wants to change something, so you end up with a compromised agreement or things slowed down,” said Rick Tolman, chief executive officer of the National Corn Growers Association.
A case in point is the pact with Colombia that has been stalled by U.S. labour unions, which are pressuring Congress to create better working conditions in the country.
Meanwhile, Canada signed a free trade agreement with Colombia on Nov. 21, 2008.
“Canada is one step up on us now with some of these South American countries. Our government needs to get with it,” said Ron Suppes, past chair of U.S. Wheat Associates Inc.
Daren Coppock, chief executive officer of the National Association of Wheat Growers, said the microscope Congress has been using to review deals has become a deterrent at the bargaining table.
“Nobody in their right mind would sit across from another negotiator knowing that whatever deal they come up with is going to be picked apart piece by piece by the United States Congress,” he said.
His association will be pushing president Barack Obama’s administration and Congress to re-establish the Trade Promotion Authority.
John Hoffman, chair of the American Soybean Association, has already spoken to representatives of Congress and to newly minted secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack about the subject.
“That’s going to be one of our priorities moving forward in the next few months is to re-establish that Trade Promotion Authority,” he said.
On March 2, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released The President’s Trade Policy Agenda. The document states that pending free trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea will have to wait until benchmarks for progress are established.
The report also noted that Obama’s administration might seek to reinstate Trade Promotion Authority but only after “extensive consultation” with Congress.
