WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama Friday urged Republicans to pave the way for quick approval of trade deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama by cooperating with the White House to extend a program to help workers who have lost their job because of trade.

“I’ve got three trade deals, sitting ready to go. These are all trade deals that Republicans told me were their top priorities. They told me this would be one of the best job creators we could have,” Obama said at a news conference

“And yet it’s still being held up because some folks don’t want to provide Trade Adjustment Assistance to people who may be displaced as a consequence of trade. Surely we can come up with a compromise to solve those problems,” he said.

Trade Adjustment Assistance is a nearly 50-year-old program that provides retraining and income assistance to help workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign competition.

Congress has modified the program over the years, most recently in 2009 when it was expanded to cover additional workers and provide more generous healthcare assistance.

The new benefits expired early this year when many newly elected Tea Party conservatives objected to the approximately $1 billion annual cost of the expanded program.

Obama administration officials warned Republicans in May the White House would not send the trade deals to Congress for a vote until there was deal to renew the expired TAA benefits.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will soon send a free trade pact with South Korea to Congress for approval despite Republican threats to vote against it because of a retraining program for workers displaced by trade, White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said on Thursday.

“There is no time to waste fighting politics as usual,” Daley said in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the U.S.-Korea Business Council. “If we do not act before the August recess, American business will suffer.”

Obama faces a showdown with Republicans over his insistence that an extension of the nearly 50-year-old Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) retraining program be passed along with the Korea pact and two other pending free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

Republicans have objected to Obama’s plan to insert the TAA program into the implementing bill for the South Korea agreement, insisting that lawmakers be allowed to vote separately on the TAA and the trade pact.

The White House believes both could pass separately.

However, Daley said Republicans have yet to offer a “credible” plan that would prevent TAA opponents from blocking a vote on the program, which Democrats see as a vital safety net and many Republicans view as ineffective.

“We can no longer wait. If there’s no agreement on an alternative approach in the very near future, we will move forward to seek passage of the FTA (Free Trade Agreement) with TAA” included, Daley told the audience of U.S. and Korean business officials.

WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) – An Australian trade official on Thursday urged countries not give up on world trade talks and to push for a small package of agreements in December that could pave the way for a broader deal.

“We would like to see more creative suggestions on ways to conclude the Doha negotiations, rather than reasons why it can’t be done,” Cathy Raper, minister-counsellor for trade at Australia’s Embassy in Washington, said during a panel discussion on the nearly 10-year-old round.

Negotiators acknowledged earlier this year that a deal to significantly open agricultural, manufacturing and services markets around the world to more trade was still out of reach, despite countless hours of negotiations since the Doha round was launched in the capital of Qatar in late 2001.

World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy has urged members to focus this year on a smaller package that would first and foremost help Least Developed Countries.

However, two major elements of the proposed December deal – significant cuts in cotton subsidies and duty-free, quota-free treatment for almost all LDC goods — are politically difficult for the United States because of opposition from domestic farm and textile groups.

Raper said Australia believes the December deal could also include the elimination of agricultural export subsidies, liberalization of environmental goods, stronger disciplines on fisheries subsidies that encourage overfishing and a comprehensive standstill against new tariffs and subsidies.

Another key element should be a “trade facilitation” agreement to tear down regulatory and other barriers that slow the shipment of goods across borders, Raper said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Republican oil-state senator said on Tuesday he would block a vote on President Barack Obama’s choice to be commerce secretary because of the nominee’s environmental views.

“Today I am placing a hold on the nomination of John Bryson,” Senator James Inhofe said, referring to the former energy company executive Obama tapped weeks ago to replace outgoing Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

“With sky high unemployment and a struggling economy, who does President Obama choose to promote job growth? The founder of the radical Natural Resources Defense Council, a left-wing environmentalist organization, which in the name of global warming, seeks to increase drastically the price of electricity and gasoline across America,” Inhofe said.

“This is a recipe for disaster for our economy,” he said.

Bryson, at his confirmation hearing last month, said he was proud of helping to found the NRDC four decades ago but noted the group often opposed decisions he made as chief executive of California utility Edison International from 1990 to 2008 and sometimes sued to block them.

He also said his top priority would be to help the Obama administration create more jobs.

Inhofe’s hold could be a serious obstacle for Bryson because in the Senate a single member can effectively hold up a nomination.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. trade gap widened sharply in May to its highest level in nearly three years as surging oil prices helped push imports to a near record and exports fell slightly from April’s all-time high.

The trade deficit totaled $50.2 billion, the highest since October 2008, and well above the consensus estimate of $44 billion from Wall Street analysts surveyed before the report, a Commerce Department report showed on Tuesday.

Despite the bigger-than-expected deficit, the high levels of exports and a pick-up of capital good imports show the struggling U.S. economy still has some signs of life.

“It still looks like foreign trade will make a positive contribution to second quarter growth, but … maybe a half

percentage point less positive. That’s the bottom line — another disappointing data point for the quarter,” said Ken

Mayland, president of Clearview Economics.

Imports rose 2.6 percent to $225.1 billion, the highest since the record of $231.6 billion set in July 2008 just before the global financial crisis took a huge toll on global trade.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. trade gap widened sharply in May to its highest level in 31 months as surging oil prices helped push imports to a near record and exports fell slightly from April’s record high.

The trade deficit totaled $50.2 billion, the highest since October 2008, and well above the consensus estimate of $44.0 billion from Wall Street analysts surveyed before the report, a Commerce Department report showed on Tuesday.

Imports rose 2.6 percent to $225.1 billion, the highest since the record of $231.6 billion set in July 2008 just before the global financial crisis took a huge toll on global trade.

U.S. stock index futures dipped slightly on the news, while the dollar pared gains against the euro. Bond prices were mostly unchanged.

The increase reflected record imports of capital goods and food, feeds and beverages in a sign of resurgent U.S. demand.

But a jump in oil import prices to $108.70 per barrel — the highest since August 2008 — also accounted for a large part of the gain.

The oil price rise helped push the U.S. petroleum trade deficit to the highest since October 2008. Imports from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries were also the highest since October 2008.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top U.S. business leader said on Monday he expected President Barack Obama to formally submit free trade pacts with South Korea, Colombia and Panama to Congress in coming days and urged their quick approval.

“We’ve waited for years to get those three free trade agreements done. If we don’t do that, it’s criminal,” Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told reporters.

Donohue said “there is no excuse … in either party” for not quickly passing the deals.

But he stopped short of singling out Republicans for holding up the pacts because of their objection to a White House plan to include a worker retraining program, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance, in the implementing legislation for one of the pacts, the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement.

The disagreement over Trade Adjustment Assistance, a decades-old program that provides retraining and income assistance to workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign competition, is the biggest issue left blocking approval of the agreements.

Democrats view it as vital to help workers who lose their jobs as a result of U.S. trade deals or companies moving overseas. But a number of Republicans question the program’s effectiveness as well as its cost.

To address those concerns, the White House negotiated a compromise that reduces the cost of TAA reforms adopted in 2009. It has signaled to business groups that it plans to submit the Korea trade bill with the bipartisan TAA plan included, consistent with a draft bill approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama appears headed toward a fight with Republicans over a long-delayed trade deal with U.S. ally South Korea, even though both sides say they want it to pass Congress.

Obama administration officials say no deal has emerged to ease passage of an agreement that supporters contend would create tens of thousands of jobs and help the White House aim of doubling U.S. exports in five years.

“We’ve yet to hear any workable ideas” from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, said one of the officials who spoke on condition they not be identified.

The administration still hopes something can be found, the aide added.

The sticking point is a worker retraining program the White House wants approved along with the Korea pact but which Republicans oppose as they push for broad spending cuts.

The Korean deal, and two other pending pacts with Colombia and Panama, were negotiated and signed under former President George W. Bush. He could not win their approval after Democrats took control of Congress in November 2006.

A year ago, Obama moved to resolve Democratic concerns with the deals. That accelerated after Republicans won the House of Representatives in November and demanded action on all three deals by July 1.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund’s executive board on Friday approved a disbursement of about 3.2 billion euros to help Greece pay debts due this month and return to positive economic growth in 2012.

In announcing the payment, part of a 110 billion euro IMF-European Union bailout package crafted for Greece last year, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said debt-laden Greece has made progress but has much more work to do.

“The program is delivering important results: the fiscal deficit is being reduced, the economy is rebalancing, and competitiveness is gradually improving,” Lagarde said in a statement on her fourth day in her new role.

“However, with many important structural reforms still to be implemented, significant policy challenges remain. A durable fiscal adjustment is needed, lest the deficit get entrenched at an unsustainably high level, and productivity-enhancing reforms should be accelerated, lest growth fail to recover,” she said.

The IMF has warned the crisis in Greece could reach countries like the United States through money market funds, especially if the contagion spreads to European banks heavily exposed to Greek debt.

The global lender scheduled its meeting to consider the fifth loan disbursement for Greece after euro zone leaders agreed on Saturday to release their portion of the 12 billion euros due to be paid to Athens from the initial bailout.

The tranche approved on Friday brings IMF disbursements so far to Greece totaling about 17.4 billion euros.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government said on Friday it is investigating the probable economic effects of eliminating all tariffs and quotas on goods from the world’s least-developed countries (LDCs).

The U.S. International Trade Commission said it would report its findings to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office in February, two months after a key World Trade Organization meeting at which Washington will be under pressure to agree to a “duty-free, quota-free” package for LDCs.

As part of the long-running Doha round of world trade talks, WTO members agreed in December 2005 on the broad outlines of a duty-free, quota-free package.

Nearly six years later, a final agreement in the Doha round still appears out of reach, so members are discussing a possible interim deal this December aimed primarily at helping the poorest members.

U.S. negotiators in 2005 insisted on a provision that would allow Washington to maintain tariffs and quotas on 3 percent of products from LDCs to protect import-sensitive U.S. industries such as textiles and sugar.

The United States, like other developed countries, has long let many goods from developing countries enter without duties.

But the main program known as the Generalized System of Preferences expired at the end of last year and has not been renewed because of a Republican senator who objected to duty-free treatment on sleeping bags from Bangladesh.