The new Republican majority in Congress could turn 2015 into the year of the trade deal.

Republicans and President Barack Obama are both eager to act on a massive Asia-Pacific deal, an even bigger agreement with the European Union and legislation that would fast-track their approval by Congress — all of which have a shot of moving next year.


So while many in Washington are bracing for stalemates on issues as wide-ranging as health care to immigration, the climate could be just right to move the kind of bipartisan trade agreements not seen since NAFTA 20 years ago.

And with trillions of dollars at stake for both the domestic and global economies, trade could become a signature issue for both Republicans and the president as they look to claim significant political victories.

“The temperature is rising, and I think, at least now, we have President Obama making very direct comments to support the trade agenda in a way that I hadn’t seen in a long while,” said Mireya Solis, a senior fellow and Japan expert at the Brookings Institution.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which would cover about 40 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and about a third of global trade, is expected to get a huge boost from the GOP takeover of the Senate, with Republicans eager to pass legislation that would expedite congressional approval of that and several other pacts.

But the trade promotion authority legislation, which would allow Obama to send the agreement to lawmakers for an up-or-down vote with no amendments, could also serve as a legislative vehicle for a slew of other trade bills that have been waiting in the wings, including measures to renew tariff cuts for developing nations, sub-Saharan Africa and U.S. manufacturers, and to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.

The last time Washington saw even a piece of this kind of trade action was in 2011, when Congress approved the South Korea, Colombia and Panama free trade deals in rapid succession.

The United States is also expected to finish negotiations on major expansion of an Information Technology Agreement with nearly 80 countries that account for about 90 percent of world technology trade. The deal, which would eliminate duties on a long list of tech products, came within a hair’s breadth of concluding this month, but talks broke down after China refused to meet other countries’ demands for concessions on what goods to make duty-free.

The White House will also press forward with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the U.S. and the 28-nation European Union, a deal even bigger than the TPP, with European Union leaders earlier this month calling for the talks to finish up by the end of 2015.

If all of that isn’t enough, the U.S. is also pushing a new Environmental Goods Agreement with 13 other members of the World Trade Organization — including China and the EU — that compose about 86 percent of global trade. Talks on a new global services agreement and a bilateral investment treaty with China also will proceed.

“Not all of those will get done in 2015,” U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said. “But we hope it’s a very productive year both in terms of negotiations and the legislative agenda.”

Before the biggest trade deals can get done, Obama will need to get lawmakers to give him the legislative authority to expedite their debate and passage. Also known as “fast-track” legislation, the Obama-backed TPA bill failed to advance earlier this year after outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) refused to take it up out of concern that a vote on the bill before the midterm elections would put Democrats in the politically hazardous position of possibly damaging their support from labor and environmental groups.

Even with the GOP majority in the Senate, the bill will still need Democratic support to get through Congress, political observers say.

“The critical item here is the extent to which the president manages what I’ve characterized as intraparty politics for Democrats,” said Scott Miller, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I think everybody has concluded, including myself, that this needs to be a bipartisan effort.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said the White House needs to rally support from at least 50 House Democrats to get the bill through the lower chamber — no easy task given the post-election decline in the number of trade-friendly Democrats.

Underscoring the difficulties the administration could face from intransigent Democrats, the White House’s legislative abilities were tested just this month when countering Democratic opposition to the massive spending package, which barely squeaked through to passage, Miller said.

And even if the votes on a fast-track bill can be had, this year’s stalled effort to get the legislation underway has left little time to spare, especially given that Democratic support could again grow more scarce once the presidential campaign kicks into full gear toward the beginning of 2016.

The point isn’t lost on congressional trade leaders. Incoming Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said trade will top the committee’s agenda in early 2015. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a Finance committee member and No. 3 in the Senate GOP leadership as Republican Conference chairman, said the bill would likely be one of the first pieces of legislation that emerges from the panel, which has jurisdiction over trade.

Trade supporters consider the bill vital to ushering the Asia-Pacific trade talks toward their conclusion because it would give other countries the confidence to resolve major outstanding issues — such as access to medicines in developing nations, environmental protections and Japanese agricultural and U.S. auto tariffs — without having to worry that any hard-won concessions could be picked apart by congressional amendment.

Bilateral talks between the U.S. and Japan on the tariffs issue have proved particularly troublesome for the larger deal. In a breakthrough last month, Tokyo proposed more meaningful tariff cuts on U.S. beef, pork and dairy products, but the negotiations have since stalled again over the United States’ refusal to meet Japan’s demands for lower auto parts tariffs.

“They’re kind of stuck because nobody’s sure where the United States’ bottom lines are,” Miller said. “I think that’s the reason to get TPA, so all our trading partners know where the Congress’ bottom line is, and at that point you conclude pretty quickly.”

The first six months of the year will be a critical window for finishing up the talks given the tight timeline, officials from the TPP countries have said. Even if the pact gets signed, it will still have to go through a legal scrubbing and translation before a bill to ratify the deal can be introduced.

That could mean that the implementing legislation would have to be drafted over the August recess with a view to getting the bill to a vote before Thanksgiving, a former Senate Democratic aide speculated.

“If people are motivated to finish, they could do it really, really quickly assuming they got the votes,” the former aide said, adding that “the timing that the administration and others are talking about strikes me as incredibly aggressive, but maybe not impossible.”

In 2011, the House and Senate were able to pass bills ratifying the deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama in a single day, the aide noted. But those agreements had been concluded in 2006 and 2007 under President George W. Bush’s administration and had a number of provisions renegotiated before the Obama administration brought them to Congress for a vote.

Aside from infusing the Asia-Pacific talks with new momentum, the fast-track legislation could serve as a vehicle for packaging other trade bills that have languished on their own.

A “trade omnibus” could include a renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences, which cut tariffs on goods from developing countries and expired in July 2013, and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, which would provide manufacturers with duty-free access to parts and supplies as long as domestic industry isn’t opposed and is considered an earmark by some Republicans.

Business groups also would like a broader trade package to include legislation to overhaul customs procedures.

“TPA is the big vehicle,” said the former Senate aide. “It’s clear to me that they want to try to do it really early in the new Congress and the question is whether they can come together on a deal.”

Any trade package would likely include a reauthorization of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides assistance to workers displaced because of trade deals and is a priority for Democrats. The reauthorization of worker aid has been necessary to secure Democratic support for trade legislation in the past.

Meanwhile, the deadline for renewing the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which eliminates tariffs on a range of items from sub-Saharan African countries, is coming up in September. Programs like this or the GSP usually aren’t controversial on their own, but some Republicans — notably retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) — have opposed them if the lost tariff revenues aren’t made up elsewhere.

Froman said the USTR’s goal is to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis to move the agenda forward, including fast track, worker aid and trade preference bills.

“There may be other issues out there of interest to Congress,” Froman said. “I’ve heard mention of the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, a customs-related bill. So there are a number of ideas.”