Lawmakers Poised to Tackle TPA Malaysia Provision in Customs Conference, Says Aide
Lawmakers are likely to address a controversial provision in the Senate's Trade Promotion Authority legislation that would bar TPA mechanisms to close a trade deal with Malaysia, as part of an expected Customs Reauthorization conference, said a Senate aide close to the process on May 26. Malaysia is one of 12 total negotiating parties in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The aide declined to give more details on the legislative approach to tackling the provision.
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In its current form, the measure would prohibit "expedited consideration of trade agreements with any country ranked on Tier 3" on the State Department's annual human trafficking report. State slapped that label on Malaysia in its latest report (here). Senators passed TPA late on May 22 without taking any action on the provision. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., spearheaded its inclusion in TPA and the Senate Finance Committee approved the measure at its late April trade markup (see 1504270008).
A Democratic objection prevented a Senate floor vote on an amendment to strike the provision from TPA in the hours before Senate passage, said a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. That amendment, brokered between Menendez and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would have revised the language of the provision to allow TPA legislative mechanisms for trade deals with Tier 3 countries that take "concrete actions to implement the principal recommendations in the most recent annual report on trafficking in persons." Those legislative mechanisms include a ban on amendments, limited debate and a forced up-or-down vote.
Menendez renewed his support in a May 26 statement for addressing trafficking in TPA, pointing to a recent discover of mass graves in Malaysia that may hold the bodies of trafficked migrants (here). "I urge our colleagues in the House to join us in denying privileged access to our markets to countries, like Malaysia, with the worst records on human trafficking," said Menendez (here).
Wyden, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., are calling for a customs compromise with the goal of sending President Barack Obama legislation by the end of June (see 1505200025). The conference is already poised to confront a number of other controversial measures, such as currency and Miscellaneous Tariff Bill process reform. Ryan criticized in late April the human trafficking provision in the Senate bill as a roadblock to concluding TPP (see 1504300071">1504300071). But in a letter to Hatch and Wyden on May 22, Ryan said he aims to amend the Ways and Means Committee-approved House Customs Reauthorization bill, HR-1907, to include the revised human trafficking language. Addressing the provision through customs legislation in a way that supersedes the language in TPA would be "tricky, but possible," said National Foreign Trade Council President Bill Reinsch on May 26.
Email ITTNews@warren-news.com for a copy of the Ryan letter.