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Barack Obama

Isolate Russia by trading with Europe: Column

John Thune
European Union chief negotiator Ignacio Bercero, right, and U.S. chief negotiator Dan Mullaney.

In response to new U.S. and EU sanctions, Russia has announced a ban on a variety of U.S. and EU agricultural imports. This is just the latest move from a nation growing increasingly antagonistic toward the West. The United States needs to further isolate Russia from the global community and make it clear that the annexation of territory and incursions into sovereign nations will not be tolerated.

One of the best ways to isolate Russia and help our European friends withstand Russian aggression is to strengthen our economic ties with the European Union. There are two important measures we can take to do that: We can expedite the export of liquefied natural gas to Europe and we can pass trade promotion authority to expedite the U.S.-EU free trade agreement – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Unfortunately, the Democrat-led Senate has failed to act on either..

Many European countries are dependent on Russia's natural gas. Russia has used this as leverage against them. While it will take time to get U.S. export facilities going, speeding up the approval process for exports of liquefied natural gas would send a signal to Russia that its days of energy hegemony are numbered.

Unfortunately, under our current system, increasing American exports of liquefied natural gas is extremely difficult. Applications to export liquefied natural gas undergo a lengthy review process. The seven applications approved by the Obama administration have taken an average almost 700 days to process. Twenty-seven applications are still in limbo. One has been waiting for over 1,000 days.

I have co-sponsored a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would require the secretary of energy to automatically approve exports of natural gas to our NATO allies and to any country where exports of natural gas would advance the national security interests of the United States. Similar legislation has passed the House of Representatives and is waiting for Senate action.

Along with increasing our liquefied natural gas exports, the most important thing we can do to help our allies withstand Russian retaliatory trade measures is to pass the U.S.-EU free trade agreement. And the best way Congress can help is to give the president trade promotion authority.

Passing the free trade agreement would strengthen our economic ties with the European Union, making EU countries less economically dependent on Russia. At the same time, it would provide a huge economic benefit to American farmers, workers and businesses. Economists estimate that each additional $1 billion in exports supports more than 5,000 good-paying U.S. jobs. With nearly 10 million Americans out of work and an unemployment rate over 6%, any agreement that would create thousands of U.S. jobs should be a priority.

The Obama administration began negotiations on the U.S.-EU free trade agreement in 2013, but a substantial amount of work still needs to be done before this agreement can be finalized. Giving the president trade promotion authority, which has been available to every other president over the past four decades, would substantially speed up the process.

With trade promotion authority, Congress sets the goals of a trade agreement and the rules that will govern negotiations. In return, it gives the administration the ability to negotiate a final agreement within those rules and the promise of an up-or-down vote in Congress when the agreement is concluded. Trade promotion authority encourages other nations to bring their best offers to the table when negotiating with the administration, because they don't need to worry that the agreement will be renegotiated in Congress.

Bipartisan trade promotion authority legislation has been introduced in both houses of Congress, and President Obama has called for this authority as recently as his State of the Union address when he told Congress, "We need to work together on tools like bipartisan trade promotion authority to protect our workers, protect our environment, and open new markets to new goods stamped 'Made in the USA.'" Unfortunately, the next day Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threw cold water on the idea . Democratic leaders in the Senate have refused to consider trade promotion legislation because they are afraid it will cost them the support in November. And since the State of the Union, President Obama has made scant effort to encourage members of his party to bring up this legislation.

With the U.S.-EU free trade agreement that is important for economic and national security reasons we need to reauthorize trade promotion authority so we can get this agreement in place. Republicans are ready to work with the president on this. We just need a willing and engaged partner.

Liquefied natural gas legislation and trade promotion authority are waiting in the Senate. They need to be our priority when Congress gets back in September. With Russia showing no signs of stopping its aggression, we need to act.

John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, is a member of the Senate Finance Committee.

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