Deirdre Shesgreen

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Ohio Gov. John Kasich made a stern and impassioned pitch at the White House Friday for a controversial trade agreement that has electrified the 2016 presidential election, widening the gulf between the Republican governor and his party’s nominee, Donald Trump.

In a remarkable political moment, Kasich stood in the White House briefing room next to President Obama’s top spokesman and defended the Democratic president’s most pressing policy priority: the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping trade deal between the U.S and 11 other countries.

Kasich blasted his former colleagues in Congress for balking at the deal, accusing them of putting their own political fortunes ahead of the good of the country.

"There are people in the House and the Senate who will play pure politics with our future," Kasich said. "I would call on my former colleagues in the United States Congress to think about the implications of saying 'no' to the trade deal.

Trump has made opposition to the TPP and other free-trade agreements a centerpiece of his campaign. In a clear dig at Trump, Kasich suggested the GOP contender was offering simplistic solutions to lure in voters who have been left behind economically.

“Sometimes simple proposals to solve difficult problems sell, but they never work,” Kasich said. In an apparent reference to Trump’s anti-immigrant platform, he added that blaming Mexicans and other immigrants for stealing American jobs is “a simple way to scapegoat” and “that’s just wrong.”

Kasich’s comments followed an Oval Office meeting with business and political leaders – a group Obama described as “people whose business it is to make sure that America has a strong position in the world and that our economy is improving.”

But the primary purpose seemed to be to show a bipartisan determination to get the trade agreement passed by the end of Obama’s presidency. Both Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP nominee Trump have said they oppose the trade deal.

“We're going to spend some time strategizing about how we can get the message out. It's frustrating, I think sometimes, that there’s so much misinformation floating around on this,” Obama said. “And I thought it was important for people, even though we're in an election season, to know that this is not something I'm letting up on.”

Trump has vowed to kill the TPP and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying such trade deals benefit corporations at the expense of American workers. In making that argument, Trump has upended Republican political orthodoxy. The GOP establishment has long held that free trade is beneficial for the U.S.

But with Trump’s rise, Republicans who once staunchly backed free trade have started to back away from such deals. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, for example, has come out against TPP, despite supporting all previous free trade agreements and once serving as President George W. Bush’s chief trade negotiator.

With his appearance at the White House, Kasich seemed to be trying to pull his party back to its roots on trade. Kasich conceded some Americans will be “displaced” by TPP, but he argued that more would be hurt by failure to embrace the pact.

“If you don’t trade, you hurt consumers,” Kasich said. “If you don’t trade, you hurt innovation. If you don’t trade, you withdraw from the world.”

It's an issue, Kasich added, where politics should go “out the window and the good of the American people has to be respected.”

Kasich was a Republican presidential candidate but withdrew after conceding defeat in the primary. In an interview scheduled to air Sunday with NBC’s Meet the Press, Kasich reiterated his opposition to Trump, saying it’s “very, very likely I will not” vote for Trump.

USA TODAY reporter Gregory Korte contributed to this story.