Mark Drajem reports for Bloomberg: Peru Free-Trade Agreement Cleared by U.S. House (Nov 8). The vote was 285 to 132. House Democrats were about evenly split, voting slightly against by 109 to 116. Senate approval is likely. A theme in the story: passage of the Korea agreement is going to be more challenging.
Here are the roll call results: FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 1060 (Hat tip Eyes on Trade). Eyes on Trade reports that, only about one in four of the 2006 crop of House Democrats voted in favor of the agreement: Our Statement: Majority of House Democrats Stand up for Constituents (Nov 8). Over a third of committee chairs voted yes.
Eoin Callan characterizes the Democratic vote as an unexpectedly large showing in favor of the FTA: Go-ahead for US-Peru free-trade deal (Nov 8):
President George W. Bush’s trade agenda got a big boost on Thursday as the US-Peru free trade agreement was approved with solid bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.
A surprisingly large number of Democrats voted in favour of the pact following the addition of tougher labour and environmental standards, giving the deal an overwhelming majority of 285-132.The strong Democratic support signals a turning point in US trade politics, and breathed new life into hopes for passing pending agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea....
The Peru pact received 109 Democratic votes in favour, a significant increase on the 15 endorsements from members of the party for the last Latin American trade deal....
Sander Levin, Democratic Congressman, said: ”From this day forward trade policy will never be the same. We have succeeded in placing fully enforceable worker rights and environmental standards on par with all other commercial provisions in a trade agreement for the first time.”
”With this dramatic change we are setting US trade policy on a completely new course,” said Mr Levin, who led the political push by the Democratic leadership.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said “scepticism” over trade policy had been overcome and that the upper chamber would also ratify the Peru pact.
The vote will put the spotlight on Senator Hillary Clinton, who has refused to say if she will back the Peru deal but has taken an increasingly critical position on trade policy during her presidential campaign.
Lori Wallach, at Public Citizen, said the opposition from “nearly three-fourths of Democratic freshmen” and a majority of the party’s influential committee chairs showed “discontent with the status quo trade policy” was building....
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