Ron Wyden has long aspired to be a major Senate dealmaker, but one of his biggest breakthroughs to date — negotiating a landmark trade bill — has put him at odds with his Senate leader and Democratic friends, and has earned him scorn from liberals who think he’s sold out.

“Like a vote for the Iraq War or statements of support for the Social Security-cutting Bowles-Simpson plan, a vote for fast track and the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] will never be forgotten and will haunt members of Congress for years to come,” said Jim Dean, chair of Democracy for America.


Wyden, the 65-year-old Oregonian, has a reputation as a thoughtful, gregarious and reliably liberal Senate Democrat, but his work with Republicans to give President Barack Obama sweeping trade negotiating powers has turned him into the public face of the Democrats’ division over trade policy, making him one of the few willing to stand up to the party’s ascendant progressive wing.

Wyden worked for months with Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan and others to craft a deal that would allow “fast-track” status for the 12-nation TPP, as long as the Obama administration consults Congress.

Wyden insists those provisions will give Congress the input it craves without allowing members to carve up the deal with amendments. But critics said the final provision for potentially stripping fast track from a trade agreement was too weak to make a significant difference.

“Chairman Hatch said he would never accept changes that make it possible for Congress to remove fast track from an agreement that does not measure up, and he got his way,” Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch said, describing the reform Wyden obtained as “new curtains hung over the same brick wall.”

Many Democratic colleagues have attacked the bill, which Hatch plans to push through the committee next week with Wyden’s support and then soon move to the Senate floor.

“Over and over again we’ve been told that trade deals will create jobs and better protect workers and the environment,” Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey said after the deal was announced. “Those promises have never come to fruition. Now some in the Senate are ready to dive into another mistaken trade deal.”

Wyden’s tortuous journey to a deal with senior Republicans on fast-track trade legislation began over a year ago, but it was the last six months that really hurt.

“I’ve been in public life a pretty long time,” Wyden told reporters. “These [negotiations] were about as grueling as it gets.”

Wyden has been hounded at home by union groups and other opponents of the trade bill who are fearful the proposed Asia-Pacific trade agreement with Japan and 10 other countries would destroy jobs, ruin the environment and take away Internet freedoms in the name of boosting corporate profits.

A 40-foot blimp, emblazoned with the appeal “Ron Wyden: It’s up to you. Don’t betray us,” summed up the groups’ message.

The fast track trade promotion authority bill allows the White House to submit trade agreements to Congress for straight up-or-down votes without any amendment. If Obama wins the legislation, he could use it to win approval of the Asia-Pacific trade deal pact this fall.

“What we are doing is negotiating the highest-level, highest-standard trade agreement in our history, with strong enforceable labor provisions, strong enforceable environmental provisions,” Obama said at the White House on Friday.

“And I will be able to show when the final agreement is presented that this is absolutely good for not just American businesses, but for Americans workers. And it’s good for the economy and it’s the right thing to do.”

Why has Wyden put up with all the heat? His home state is heavily dependent on exports, particularly to Asia. So over the years, the Oregonian has consistently backed trade agreements that eliminate foreign tariffs and even voted to give trade promotion authority to George W. Bush in 2002.

“I’ve heard often that trade agreements aren’t about tariffs anymore. Tell that to a rural farmer or someone that’s in the IT industry. They don’t think tariffs are unimportant. They’re getting clobbered by substantial tariffs. In manufacturing double-digit tariffs, in agriculture triple-digit tariffs,” Wyden said.

“For me, the heart of this is to have a modern trade policy that’s going to work for hard-working, middle-class Americans, provide a path for them to have more high-waged, high-skilled jobs.”

Hatch initially hoped to move the trade bill in February, then changed his goal to the end of March as talks dragged on. Republican aides complained of the difficulty of “getting Wyden to yes.”

The fast-track bill has been Wyden’s hot potato since early 2014, when he took over leadership of the Senate Finance Committee from Max Baucus, who was named ambassador to China. But then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ruled out any action on the bill before that year’s congressional election.

Wyden lost the chairmanship of the powerful panel after Republicans captured control of the chamber in November. Suddenly, he had a lot less leverage to persuade the committee’s incoming boss, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, to accept his ideas for revamping decades-old trade legislation used to push through deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993.

A picture of the two veteran lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee website seemed to illustrate the gulf between them on an important provision of the fast-track bill, with the 81-year-old Hatch coolly sizing up his 65-year-old colleague and Wyden looking slightly uncomfortable.

Shortly before voters went to the polls in November, Wyden finally shared some of his ideas for revamping fast track with Hatch, but talks did not really pick up steam until the Republicans took charge of the Senate in the new year.

The two sides soon hit a snag over Wyden’s idea for a new mechanism to potentially turn off the fast-track procedures at the same time that Democracy for America and Move On, another progressive group, were criticizing Wyden for even talking with Republicans about the bill and threatening to try to defeat him in Oregon’s 2016 Senate Democratic Party primary.

Hatch did ultimately agree to many of Wyden’s “smart track” proposals aimed at giving members of Congress and the public more information about what’s being negotiated in trade agreements. Wyden is particularly proud of a new requirement that the White House publish the full text of trade pact 60 days before signing it.

“Well over six months was spent in these discussions and they were not for the faint hearted,” Wyden said. “There were strong differences.”

But critics remain unsatisfied. They say the final provision for potentially stripping fast track from a trade agreement was too weak to make a significant difference.