Congress then votes on the proposal, usually under special procedures that bar amendments to the pact’s details.
‘Trojan Horse’
“The trade talks could easily become a Trojan Horse,” said Marcus Stanley, the policy director for Americans for Financial Reform, a group that includes labor unions, civil rights organizations and consumer advocates.
In separate letters on the EU and Asia-Pacific pacts, the industry coalition said negotiators should draft rules limiting what regulators can do in the name of protecting financial stability. The letters also urged using the pacts to curb extra- territorial rules that can reach beyond U.S. borders, like ones currently being considered on financial derivatives.
None of the letters specifically mention a desire to change the Dodd-Frank law, the 2010 overhaul of U.S. financial regulation. The law does, however, address many of the issues raised in the letters on the trade agreements.
The coalition called for the U.S.-EU agreement to avoid rules that reach across national boundaries and have an “extra- territorial effect.” Allgeier said that suggestion was motivated in part by a fight over regulation of the cross-border swaps market under Dodd-Frank.
EU Negotiations
The 27-nation EU hopes to complete talks on a broad agreement on investment and trade in goods and services with the U.S. within two years, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said on Feb. 13.
The U.S. announced plans to join a WTO negotiation on trade in services, in areas including finance, logistics and telecommunications, on Jan. 15. Asia-Pacific nations including the U.S. and Japan are also working on a deal for that region, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Trade policy grew more controversial in the 1990s as pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and WTO deals addressed domestic rules -- rather than only tariffs applied at borders -- as potential barriers to commerce. Services, in particular, face domestic regulations because companies usually need to be physically present to provide them.