WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate passed a "fast track" trade bill late Friday that would give President Barack Obama authority to land a major new trade deal with Pacific Rim nations.
Alaska's senators have touted the bill as a path to expanding Alaska's export market, particularly with Japan. Both voted for passage; the final vote was 62-37.
The bill gives the president authority to negotiate a new trade pact with 11 countries, including Australia, Mexico, Singapore and Japan. The president has not had such trade promotion authority since 2002. The bill would also give Congress a limited say in the deal: The House and Senate would have to approve trade agreements with a simple majority, without any show-stopping amendments.
While the bill had the support of Obama and Republican congressional leaders, lawmakers held up passage late into Friday night before Memorial Day recess, fighting over free trade, currency manipulation and reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, which provides loan guarantees for U.S. companies exporting their products, among other issues.
The agreement on the table -- the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- would renegotiate trade requirements in the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994.
"At a time when the economy desperately needs a boost, these agreements will help move our country forward by unlocking new opportunities for growth and expansion for our workers, from those in the high-tech sector to our ranchers, farmers and fishermen," Sen. Dan Sullivan said after voting for the bill Friday night.
The Obama administration argues that under the deal, Alaska would benefit from new access to markets in Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Vietnam because of reduced tariffs that those countries would have to pay for U.S. goods that go through the European Union. Alaska exported an annual average of $852 million in goods to the EU between 2012 and 2014.
Despite opposition by lawmakers wary of trade deals, which they blame for American job losses in recent decades, Obama argues that the deal would hold other countries to higher standards, including for child labor and the environment. Opponents, particularly labor groups, argue it could export more American jobs and expand the trade deficit with car-producing Japan.
The bill would give Obama the authority to negotiate the deal, but would also provide for public scrutiny and congressional approval before it becomes final.
"Any agreement that we finalize with the other 11 countries will have to be posted online for at least 60 days before I even sign it. Then it would go to Congress -- and you know they're not going to do anything fast," Obama said in a May 8 speech at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. "So there will be months of review. Every t's crossed, every i's dotted. Everybody is going to be able to see exactly what's in it."
Between 2012 and 2014, 35 percent of Alaska's exports went to countries in the TPP.
"Most of [Alaska's] trade doesn't go to the Lower 48 states, and so when we think about our trading partners, for us it is international trade," Sen. Lisa Murkowski said on the Senate floor last week.
Alaska exported $5.2 billion in merchandise in 2014, according to the White House. That's up from 2013, when the state exported $4.6 billion in goods, including fish, minerals, timber, and oil and gas, according to the Business Roundtable, which has long fought for the trade deal's passage.
"With solid trade agreements, Alaska will be able to export even more goods and get a better deal for those goods. And we'll be able to attract increased foreign investment to the state, which will create more high-paying jobs," Sullivan said.
The countries involved in the ongoing trade negotiations took 54 percent of Alaska's goods exports in 2014, Murkowski said. "So as we look to the TPP and the benefits that will accrue, I think our state is looking to strengthen those relationships, as well as new markets for Alaska's exports," she said.
In a large part, that means Japan.
Japan is already the second-largest taker of Alaska's exports behind China -- $745 million in goods in 2013.
Murkowski said a new trade deal could boost fisheries' trade with Japan. "Current tariff rates to export frozen fish and prepared crab to Japan are about 10 percent, so a free trade agreement will lower these tariffs and increase access to Japan's seafood market," she said.
In the final days of Senate negotiations over the trade bill, Murkowski backed off efforts to attach an amendment to allow the U.S. to export crude oil.
Another amendment offered by Murkowski, along with Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, to prevent "pirate fishing" didn't make it to a vote.
Whitehouse said that the treaty would ensure the U.S. fishing industry is "not being punished or harmed by foreign competitors who are not fishing sustainably, fishing illegally, or violating the laws of the jurisdiction in which they are fishing." Fishermen who don't "play by the rules" can "bring catch to market less expensively" than those who do, Whitehouse said.
Despite long hours of Senate drama in the push to pass the bill before Memorial Day recess, it's not a done deal. The bill still must pass the House, where Obama's trade deal faces an even tougher fight, including strong Democratic opposition.