Chuck Grassley: “We were told sometime this spring. Spring is fleeting. That is why I hope we can get a date definite that it will be…”

“We were told sometime this spring. Spring is fleeting. That is why I hope we can get a date definite that it will be brought up and it can be passed. It will be particularly fruitful and beneficial to the President to have Trade Promotion Authority now as he goes to the international conference at Monterey this week. It would be nice if he had it as he is going to visit Peru; as he is going to visit El Salvador. Wherever the President is going to go, this issue always comes up. As I talked to Bob Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative who does our negotiations, the fact that the President does not have this authority weakens our position at the international conferences we attend, particularly now as we are beginning negotiations in Geneva, on what is called the Doha Round--it was agreed to last November, a brand new round of negotiations that hopefully will be finalized for about 3 years--for the President to be credible and his people to be credible at the negotiating table, we must have Trade Promotion Authority.”