A U.S. congressional leader expects the legislature will be unlikely to take a vote on the Pacific free trade pact before the November 2016 presidential election, The Washington Post reported Friday.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, expressed his view on the fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement during an interview with the daily, which characterizes it as a "significant blow" to President Barack Obama's policy of focusing on the Asia-Pacific region.
"It certainly shouldn't come before the election," majority leader McConnell was quoted as saying. McConnell said Obama "would be making a big mistake to try to have that voted on during the election."
The report came as the sweeping U.S.-led trade pact's possible timeline for taking effect through a signing and subsequent domestic ratification process is a big topic within the United States itself, as well as among the 11 partners in the initiative, including Japan, Canada and Australia.
Passage by the Congress is indispensable to implementing the TPP, but the focus among American politicians and voters has shifted to battles for presidential nominations rather than trade-related topics that could impact jobs.
The first state election for presidential nominees in both the Republican and Democratic parties will take place Feb. 1 in Iowa.