GOP Leaders Eye Steel Help to Lure Support on Fast-Track Trade Bill

Source: WSJ

WASHINGTON—Senate Republicans are offering a new incentive to support legislation giving the president expanded trade-negotiating power: help for beleaguered steel companies. American steelmakers are seeking help from the government in response to a flood of imports, saying they are the victims of illegal trade practices. In an effort to recover, the manufacturers have banded together to try to persuade the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Commerce Department to impose punitive tariffs on foreign rivals.

A measure to make it easier for the trade overseers to crack down has been attached to a bill to toughen trade enforcement laws. But the passage of that bill will take time, because of the need to reconcile differences between the House and the Senate, and steel-state lawmakers want assurances the steel provision will become law.

Now, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and fellow Republicans are trying to give the steel provision a better chance of becoming law—part of an effort to win a larger fight to give President Barack Obama fast-track trade negotiating powers. The move echoes a tactic used by then-President George W. Bush in 2002 as he fought for fast-track authority—the power to submit trade deals to an up-or-down vote in Congress, without amendments.

That year, after steel-company bankruptcies and shortly before a vote on fast-track legislation, Mr. Bush imposed tariffs of as much as 30% on most steel imports. Congress approved the bill later that year. The tariffs were lifted in late 2003. Now, lawmakers are looking to attach language broadening the ways steel companies could win trade complaints to a bill that is part of a complex strategy by Mr. McConnell to line up votes for the fast-track bill.

Under the strategy, a number of Senate Democrats would have to cast a procedural vote this Tuesday on a bill to give Mr. Obama and his successor fast-track authority. After the fast-track bill passed the Senate, the chamber would vote next on a bill that would renew an expiring program to aid workers who suffer from production shifts overseas or import competition.


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