Trade Advisory Group Members Urge Quick Agreement on TAA, Three Trade Deals
Trade Advisory Group Members Urge Quick Agreement on TAA, Three Trade Deals
"Several members of the Council of the Americas Trade Advisory Group are pressing for 'swift approval' of all three pending free trade agreements and a way forward on a worker-aid program that is tying up passage," writes The Hill of a COA op-ed published in the The Washington Post.
Several members of the Council of the Americas trade advisory group are pressing for "swift approval" of all three pending free trade agreements and a way forward on a worker-aid program that is tying up passage.
The former government officials wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post calling on Congress to move forward with Colombia, Panama and South Korea and pass a renewal of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program.
"Given political realities, the cost-benefit analysis should be clear: better to incur the fiscal cost of renewing the program than to lose the much greater benefits of free trade with three important trading partners," they wrote.
"Both the administration and congressional Republicans profess an appropriate sense of urgency regarding passage of the trade agreements," they wrote." To reach that goal by the August recess, they must end the partisan wrangling over TAA, which is a dispute over process, not substance."
Those signing on to the op-ed were John Negroponte, a former deputy secretary of state and director of national intelligence in the George W. Bush administration and chairman of the Council of the Americas. Mack McLarty, a former special envoy for the Americas and White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration.
