Baucus urges confirmation vote on trade appointees
Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., urged his colleagues on Monday to vote for confirmation of key Obama administration trade officials who have been serving in recess appointments, and told reporters he knows of no holds on the nominations.
Baucus made the statements after his committee held a confirmation hearing for Michael Punke, the deputy U.S. trade representative and ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, and Islam Siddiqui, the chief agriculture negotiator. Both are serving under recess appointments that expire in December.
The committee also considered the nomination of David Johanson, a long-time Senate Finance Committee aide, to be a member of the U.S. International Trade Commission, and two other nominees.
“I’m not aware of any holds, but it is hard to predict the process in the Senate,” Baucus said.
When President Barack Obama nominated Punke and Siddiqui for their posts in 2009, then-Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., put a hold on their nominations in an effort to put pressure on the administration to negotiate with Canada to change a tobacco law that Bunning believed was hurting Kentucky tobacco. Bunning has since retired.
There have been reports that some senators may not want to confirm nominees to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative until Obama sends the pending free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama to Congress for approval, or possibly until they have been passed.
Baucus said he believes Congress will approve the trade agreement this year, along with trade adjustment assistance for workers and farmers, but declined to discuss procedural details with reporters. “We will find a way to get them passed this year,” he said.
Republicans including Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have said repeatedly that Obama should send the agreements to Capitol Hill, but administration officials say privately that the White House will not forward the agreements until officials are sure that trade adjustment assistance will pass.
Hatch, who is not enthusiastic about TAA, said Monday, “I suspect that trade adjustment assistance will pass as well. That will be pleasing to [the president] I am sure.”
Baucus asked Punke how he is going to get the nearly decade-old WTO Doha round “jump started.”
Punke responded that movement in the Doha round would require that all 153 member countries “admit what we’re doing is not working.”
The most common theme in analyzing the problems with the Doha round, Punke said, “is the lack of agreement on the appropriate role for emerging economies” such as Brazil and China. An agreement, he said, “must reflect the role they are playing in the global economy.”
Although some foreign leaders have said the United States has not exerted leadership in trying to finish the round, Punke said, “I could not be more confident and proud of the U.S. role.”
Punke said U.S. negotiators have been “creative in their willingness” to explore new approaches and “flexible” in their negotiations while insisting that the deal be worthwhile. He said he had learned as a Senate Finance Committee aide that “no deal is better than a bad deal,” but that some negotiators say that a bad deal is better than no deal.
Baucus made the statements after his committee held a confirmation hearing for Michael Punke, the deputy U.S. trade representative and ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, and Islam Siddiqui, the chief agriculture negotiator. Both are serving under recess appointments that expire in December.
The committee also considered the nomination of David Johanson, a long-time Senate Finance Committee aide, to be a member of the U.S. International Trade Commission, and two other nominees.
“I’m not aware of any holds, but it is hard to predict the process in the Senate,” Baucus said.
When President Barack Obama nominated Punke and Siddiqui for their posts in 2009, then-Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., put a hold on their nominations in an effort to put pressure on the administration to negotiate with Canada to change a tobacco law that Bunning believed was hurting Kentucky tobacco. Bunning has since retired.
There have been reports that some senators may not want to confirm nominees to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative until Obama sends the pending free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama to Congress for approval, or possibly until they have been passed.
Baucus said he believes Congress will approve the trade agreement this year, along with trade adjustment assistance for workers and farmers, but declined to discuss procedural details with reporters. “We will find a way to get them passed this year,” he said.
Republicans including Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have said repeatedly that Obama should send the agreements to Capitol Hill, but administration officials say privately that the White House will not forward the agreements until officials are sure that trade adjustment assistance will pass.
Hatch, who is not enthusiastic about TAA, said Monday, “I suspect that trade adjustment assistance will pass as well. That will be pleasing to [the president] I am sure.”
Baucus asked Punke how he is going to get the nearly decade-old WTO Doha round “jump started.”
Punke responded that movement in the Doha round would require that all 153 member countries “admit what we’re doing is not working.”
The most common theme in analyzing the problems with the Doha round, Punke said, “is the lack of agreement on the appropriate role for emerging economies” such as Brazil and China. An agreement, he said, “must reflect the role they are playing in the global economy.”
Although some foreign leaders have said the United States has not exerted leadership in trying to finish the round, Punke said, “I could not be more confident and proud of the U.S. role.”
Punke said U.S. negotiators have been “creative in their willingness” to explore new approaches and “flexible” in their negotiations while insisting that the deal be worthwhile. He said he had learned as a Senate Finance Committee aide that “no deal is better than a bad deal,” but that some negotiators say that a bad deal is better than no deal.
