TPA Passes Senate & Dumping Apples

TPA Passes Senate & Dumping Apples. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

The full Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority legislation by a bi-partisan vote of 62 to 37. TPA now goes to the House where it will undoubtedly have a tough time as there is strong opposition in the House. Trade Promotion Authority would give the President and the next more flexibility to negotiate trade deals. Supporters of TPP argue that it will increase American jobs by opening up more global markets and advance several strategic defense goals by not allowing China to gain outsize influence in Southeast Asia. This is one of those rare instances where most Republican tend to agree with the President.

There is a lot of talk about some apples that have been dumped and the talk has not all been good. There is confusion as to why the waste. Jon Devaney with the Washington State Tree Fruit Association says this was probably a one-off event and the cause was simply the extended port delay.

DEVANEY: What has happened is fruit that would have been perfectly sale-able over the winter if we had not had long delays in getting access to customers now we're falling enough behind that some of it's not getting sold before it's out of condition.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.