President Barack Obama’s quest for a Pacific Rim trade deal to strengthen U.S. ties with Asia advanced on Tuesday, with the Senate moving toward a final vote on granting Obama the power to speed trade agreements through Congress.
Senate approval of “fast-track” negotiating authority for the president was likely to follow on Wednesday. That would move the trade package closer to completion, but a hurdle on a related measure remained in the House of Representatives.
In a win for Obama and a defeat for labor unions skeptical of the trade deal, the Senate voted 60-37 to limit debate on the fast-track measure. That just barely satisfied the 60-vote threshold needed after two senators who supported the bill on its first run through the Senate a month ago – Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Ben Cardin – changed their votes to “no.”
“Today is a very big vote. It’s an important moment for the country,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s top Republican, in urging senators to support Obama’s 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, a central part of his foreign policy pivot to Asia.
via Reuters
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Alfonso Esparza
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
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