WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday offered to help President Barack Obama pass a sweeping trade package, while pressing for measures to deregulate finance and raise the price of prescription drugs.
Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and others repeatedly praised the top Obama trade official, Amb. Michael Froman, at a Senate Finance Committee hearing that opened with vocal protests from liberal demonstrators.
“Ambassador Froman, you’re not telling the truth!” one protester shouted, while another one declared that his job had been “shipped overseas.”
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A fast-track bill would not only apply to TPP talks, but also to another pending deal with the European Union and any other future trade pacts covered by the timeframe of the bill. And Hatch — whose top campaign contributors are dominated by financial firms — insisted that any EU deal must include a financial services chapter. European negotiators have pressed U.S. regulators to loosen financial regulations for years in other international forums. Meanwhile, Republicans seeking to roll back the 2010 Dodd-Frank bank reform law have crafted bills to help banks dodge U.S. oversight by substituting weaker European rules and overseers.
Froman, who worked at Citigroup before joining the Obama administration in 2009, pushed back against Hatch on that issue, saying USTR did not support a bank regulatory chapter in the EU deal.
