Obama makes personal appeal on trade with key vote in House

Source: AP

By ERICA WERNER and CHARLES BABINGTON

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama made an 11th-hour appeal to dubious Democrats on Friday in a tense run-up to a House showdown on legislation to strengthen his hand in global trade talks.

The president's hastily scheduled trip to the Capitol coincided with the beginning of debate on the House floor on the legislation, which stands near the top of his second-term agenda.

"Is America going to shape the global economy, or is it going to shape us?" said Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who is head of the House Ways and Means Committee and a GOP pointman on an issue that scrambled the normal party alignment in divided government.

But Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., countered that the legislation heading toward a showdown vote included "no meaningful protections whatever against currency manipulation" by some of America's trading partners, whose actions he said have "ruined millions of middle class jobs."

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FILE - In this June 9, 2015 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in Washington. A landmark trade bill that tops President Barack Obama’s second-term agenda faces a showdown vote in the House as Democrats mount a last-ditch effort to kill it. The outcome was uncertain and the drama intense heading into Friday’s votes. In frantic 11th-hour maneuvering, liberals in the House defied their own president and turned against a favored program of their own that retrains workers displaced by trade. Killing the program would kill the companion trade bill, and many Democrats and labor leaders advocated just that. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

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