Senate Republicans continued to press the White
House today to send to Congress the trade deals for South
Korea, Columbia and Panama,
criticizing President Obama’s trade policy as “schizophrenic.”
“This schizophrenic trade policy is doing nothing
but hurting American workers and undermining our recovery,” U.S. Senator Orrin
Hatch, R-Utah, said on the Senate floor today. “Under no circumstance should
these trade agreements be held up.”
The Obama administration has indicated that they
will not submit legislation on these trade agreements until a deal is reached
on the TAA – the Trade Adjustment Assistance, a now-retired jobs program for
laid-off workers.
“At a time when 14 million Americans are looking
for work, they actually want to hold off on these known job-creating agreements
in exchange for a green light to spend more money,” Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor, “It’s astonishing.”
Republicans are calling for these two issues –the
trade deals and the TAA — to be dealt with “separately and independently,” in
order to move ahead with the long-stalled trade deals. Read more here.
Related:
US
Trade Analyst: Sees Hope for Approval of Pending FTAs (iMarket News)
