POLITICS

Obama’s Pacific Trade Push Faces a Senate Vote This Week

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and 
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan toasting President Obama at a state dinner in April. The guest list included legislators who support the president’s trade effort. Zach Gibson/The New York Times 
WASHINGTON —  President Obama’s most aggressive and sustained legislative push since the Affordable Care Act faces a crucial first test this week when a divided Senate considers a bill that would grant him accelerated power to complete a massive trade accord with 11 nations across the Pacific Rim.
But after lobbying members of Congress in a campaign that has included rides on Air Force One, meetings in the West Wing, private vows of political support and public attacks on critics in his own party, Mr. Obama’s top legislative priority remains at risk.
A vote scheduled for Tuesday on legislation that would grant him trade promotion authority, also known as “fast track,” has become mired in a procedural thicket, with Democrats — many of them loyal to labor unions bent on killing the bill — vowing to oppose it.
Once Congress grants a president trade promotion authority, lawmakers have the ability to vote up or down on a final trade agreement, but they forfeit the right to amend the deal or filibuster it. The bill before the Senate adds a new twist: If lawmakers decide a final trade accord falls short of their standards, Congress can vote to revoke the president’s authority and then try to amend the deal.
It will get only more difficult for the president as the debate moves from the Senate to the House. Republicans on whom Mr. Obama is relying to provide the bulk of the votes for the trade measure are finding their colleagues — many aligned with the Tea Party — reluctant to hand the president a victory. Leaders have warned the White House that they may not be able to supply enough votes to compensate for balky members of the president’s own party.
The accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, would reduce tariffs on a vast array of goods and services, reaching 40 percent of the global economy and affecting about 40 percent of America’s exports and imports. Mr. Obama has seized on it as “the most progressive trade agreement in history,” with labor and environmental standards written into its text and the potential to right the wrongs of past trade deals.
But even senior members of the administration seem astonished at the difficulty the president is having in selling the deal.
“I’ve never participated in something like this,” said Penny Pritzker, the secretary of commerce, who has helped lead the lobbying campaign with other cabinet members and White House officials. “It’s an all-hands-on-deck approach,” she said, “and sometimes it’s in the hallway.”
Michael B. Froman, the trade representative, is known to prowl the tunnels underneath the Capitol to buttonhole skeptical Democrats. He has also lobbied them at dinner parties, at the airport and even on a crowded bus in India during a presidential visit there.
Mr. Obama, who normally eschews legislative schmoozing, has made his case in dozens of telephone calls and one-on-one or group meetings with lawmakers.
He has also become increasingly aggressive in taking on critics in his own party, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a popular figure among the liberal base who has denounced the trade deal as a sellout to corporate interests. Mr. Obama has suggested that they are either intentionally misrepresenting the issue or being duped by misinformation about it. That has put the president in the uncomfortable position of feuding openly with activists who have usually revered him.
“He’s been very active making the case that this is a different-in-kind trade agreement, the most progressive trade agreement,” said Jeffrey D. Zients, the director of Mr. Obama’s National Economic Council.
Late last month, in a meeting with the House’s moderate New Democrats coalition, the president offered to personally campaign for any member who provokes a primary challenge by supporting him.
“It’s no secret the A.F.L.-C.I.O. said, ‘We will not do anything for anyone if you support these trade bills,’ ” said Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Democrat of New York, who was at the two-hour meeting in the Cabinet Room. “Folks are concerned if they don’t have the support and enthusiasm they usually have, they’re going to need some help.”
Mr. Obama has enlisted the architects of his presidential campaigns, both inside and outside the White House, to allay those worries. They are armed with polling data that indicates that most Democratic voters — particularly the fast-growing coalition of women, minorities and lower-income people — favor free trade and would be more likely to vote for a candidate who shared that view.
Mitch Stewart, a veteran field organizer for Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns, has started a group called the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs to counter the well-funded opposition by labor, environmental and human rights organizations that reject the president’s stance on trade.
Mr. Stewart will not reveal any of his group’s financial backers. With public opinion data from Pete Brodnitz — partner of Joel Benenson, Mr. Obama’s campaign pollster — Mr. Stewart is trying to help the president persuade Democrats that this trade agreement, unlike previous pacts, would deliver benefits to American workers.
“He’s frankly learned from previous attempts at this,” Mr. Stewart said.
Trade votes have always posed difficulties for presidents because of their technical and regional complexity and the potential impact on jobs. But this one has proved a particularly heavy lift for Mr. Obama, who campaigned for president railing against trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement.
But a president’s priorities are not the same as a legislator’s, said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who has gone from free-trade enthusiast to skeptic since Nafta’s passage in 1993.
With Mr. Obama’s pledge to “pivot” foreign policy toward Asia, his priorities have diverged from his party’s. To the president, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would counter the economic weight of China and set rules on labor, the environment, intellectual property and investor protections for the growing economies of the Pacific Rim. For members of Congress, it is about jobs.
“I understand the president’s desire to pull these countries away from China’s orb here, but I feel middle-class income decline is the greatest problem Americans face, and trade agreements exacerbate that decline,” Mr. Schumer said.
Those tensions have pushed the administration to seek votes one by one. Representative Ami Bera, Democrat of California, narrowly won his swing district in 2012, then ran for re-election in 2014 on a pledge to oppose trade promotion authority. After two rides on Air Force One and a trip to India with the president, Mr. Bera came around.
“The president has asked for my support to negotiate the deal based on the parameters outlined by Congress in T.P.A.,” he said in a statement, using an acronym for trade promotion authority. “I made it clear, however, that my support to give the president the authority to negotiate a trade deal is not the same as giving him my vote or support for the final Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
Representative John Delaney, Democrat of Maryland, also got personal presidential attention — and a promise by Mr. Obama to campaign for him if he sticks with the White House on trade.
“Sure it’s great to have the president’s support,” Mr. Delaney said, although he said that his decision to support the trade agreement was not based on the president’s pledge to campaign for him.
The White House also made sure that the guest list for the April 28 state dinner for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan was loaded with supporters of the president’s trade push, from Republicans like Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah to Democrats like Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Ron Kind of Wisconsin. Representative Earl Blumenauer, a fast-track supporter, brought as his guest a fellow Oregon Democrat, Representative Suzanne Bonamici. A week later, with the president in her district, she declared her support.
On Friday, Mr. Obama traveled to Nike’s headquarters, in Oregon, to highlight the company’s pledge to create 10,000 jobs in the United States if the trade accord is passed. But one senator who is undeclared on the matter, Angus King, an independent from Maine, was not impressed.
Nike has sent virtually all of its manufacturing to Asia, including Vietnam, a party to the trade deal. In contrast, a competitor, New Balance, has kept its production in the United States, including in Maine.
“That’s certainly an influence,” Mr. King said. “I’ve been to those New Balance factories. I’ve looked those people in the eye.”