House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the calculation quickly: If Congress didn’t act swiftly to send President Barack Obama a fast-track trade bill, it might never get done.

With that in mind, the Democratic president and the two Republican leaders embarked on their most intense bipartisan negotiating spree in recent memory, speaking on private conference calls, scheduling meetings with supportive Democrats and plotting a process to advance Obama’s top agenda item over the finish line. The back channeling, combined with some complex procedural machinations, might allow the House and Senate to clear both Trade Promotion Authority and Trade Adjustment Assistance before the Fourth of July recess.


“Some of them are anguishing,” Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said of fellow Democrats who have backed trade deals in the past. “But at the end of the day, I think they will come around.”

The process began in the House on Thursday, as the chamber opened debate on a measure to give Obama fast-track trade authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the largest trade agreement in history. If it passes, McConnell would then take up the measure next week, hoping to win the support of at least a dozen Senate Democrats to send it to the president’s desk. The Senate would then amend a separate trade bill with TAA, a program to aid workers who lose their jobs due to trade deals, sending the measure to the White House for final approval.

The convoluted process is needed to surmount opposition from House Democrats, who last week blocked a program they support — TAA — in order to stop the larger trade package from getting to Obama’s desk. The Senate had passed a bill last month that included both the worker aid and negotiating authority, but further changes in the House have forced senators to take up the proposal again, prompting a whole new round of negotiating and posturing ahead of decisive votes in the coming days.

The entire process hinges on support from Senate and House Democrats who support free trade but insist that the government also provide aid and job training to help workers hurt by foreign trade. House Democrats, led by veteran Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind, were eager to get the trade deal done, and were looking for assurances from their Senate counterparts. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, wanted a pledge from McConnell that he would clear TAA before they commit to voting for the fast-track bill.

In a joint statement Wednesday, McConnell and Boehner began to provide some of those assurances.

“We are committed to ensuring both TPA and TAA get votes in the House and Senate and are sent to the President for signature,” the leaders said. “And it is our intent to have a conference on the customs bill and complete that in a timely manner so that the President can sign it into law.”

At the White House on Wednesday, pro-trade Democrats and Obama discussed the possibility of sticking together as a bloc so they can get TPA, TAA, a customs enforcement and perhaps an extension of the Export-Import Bank charter, which lapses at the end of the month.

“I and all the other members there are looking for a guarantee … for a deal to be good it’s got to have enforcement, TAA, I think it’s got to have Ex-Im reauthorization,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “A lot of [the meeting] was to talk about that very question of: What is a sufficient assurance?”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who spoke to Obama and his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, this week said she needs to see both TAA and TPA signed by the president at the same time.

“There isn’t going to be a TPA if you can’t tell people that workers are going to have some protections, some retraining,” Feinstein said. “And everybody feels strongly about that.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who attended the White House meeting, called it a “vigorous” discussion but said he doesn’t believe “there’s a clear solution yet.”

The process was crafted in a series of private meetings and phone calls between politicians who hardly interact. Boehner first spoke to the president on Tuesday about getting the trade deal done. That led to a conference call between the speaker, McConnell and Obama on Tuesday night, on which the legislative leaders laid out their strategy.

Once the White House knew what Boehner and McConnell were planning, Obama started selling it. Pro-trade House Democrats quietly snuck over to the White House Tuesday morning to meet with Obama and they continued their discussion through Wednesday evening.

“We’re trying to make sure House and Senate Democrats are on the same page. That is crucial,” Kind said as he left a meeting of the New Democrat Coalition on Wednesday. The group, which Kind leads, consists largely of moderate Democrats who back free trade.

The stepped-up effort highlights how central trade has become to Obama’s second-term agenda, particularly after House Democrats repudiated his push in dramatic fashion last week. Since then, GOP leaders have been busy devising a Plan B to overcome that opposition. Democrats worked hard to lock up assurances. Their main concern was that they would vote for fast-track authority again, and TAA would never get through the chamber.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said Boehner has told him their concerns will be answered. “He even stated declaratively that TAA will pass,” Connolly said.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, want a similar promise that McConnell and Boehner will agree to amend the preferences bill with an extension of the expiring TAA program, a key Democratic priority.

Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who co-authored the Senate bill, said in an interview that Republicans would move to include the worker aid program in the trade preferences plan, which includes incentives to open markets in African countries. That’s the cost of winning critical Democratic support for fast-track, which would prohibit Congress from making changes to the TPP, Hatch said.

“I don’t think there’s any question we’d do that,” he said. “That’s part of the deal. We know the quid pro quo for TPA is TAA.”

Still, some top Senate Democrats were playing coy.

Sen. Patty Murray, who represents Washington state, home of corporate giants like Boeing that are clamoring for a trade deal, said Wednesday she has spoken with Obama in recent days. But she would not say whether she’ll back the House’s latest gambit.

“I’m not going to answer ‘if’ questions right now,” she said tersely.

There is little margin for error. Obama can afford to lose only two of the 14 Democratic senators who voted for fast-track authority last month.

That makes the decision on how to sequence the votes in Congress a key consideration. Some top Republicans believe it makes sense to enact the fast-track bill first, figuring House Democrats would be inclined at that point to allow TAA through after having lost their leverage. But it’s no sure bet that Senate Democrats would go along with a vote on fast-track without immediate consideration of the worker aid package.

“I’d be surprised that many Senate Democrats trust McConnell or Boehner to deliver on TAA after we voted for TPA,” said Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a leading Democratic opponent of trade deals.

But White House press secretary Josh Earnest insisted Wednesday that Obama would only back a plan that includes the worker aid program.

“What we have said is that the only legislative strategy that the president can support is one that will result in both pieces of legislation arriving at his desk,” Earnest said.

Nelson, the Florida Democrat, said the end result is all that matters — not the process. The senator, who backs the GOP’s new tactic, told Obama as much in a phone call that ended a bit prematurely Tuesday. As Nelson was talking, he handed the phone to a nearby Harry Reid so the two could quickly chat. But Reid thought the call was over — and hung up on the president before Nelson could finish his conversation.

Fortunately, Nelson said, Obama called him back.

“He says, ‘Harry wouldn’t hang up [on me],’” Nelson recalled.

Burgess Everett, Edward Isaac-Dovere and Sarah Wheaton contributed to this report.