Washington Insider: Debating Border Protections

Almost everyone has at least one eye on the negotiations in Congress that aim to craft a compromise over border security. Bloomberg notes that the lawmakers involved are more used to cutting deals than taking hard-edged positions on immigration and takes that as a “sign that leaders of both parties are in no mood for another shutdown.” Still, President Donald Trump will need to sign off on any final agreement and, at least in public, his pronouncements indicate he’s insisting on the proposed $5.7 billion for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who’ll be directing negotiations behind the scenes, picked 17 spending panel members well versed in the art of compromise, Bloomberg thinks. The House-Senate conference committee will convene today to start negotiating a Homeland Security spending bill for the rest of fiscal 2019. They aim to draft a compromise on border security that can get Trump’s signature and clear the way for Congress to pass six other spending bills to fund the rest of the departments and agencies affected by the shutdown until Oct. 1. Leaders in both parties are setting early sights on a pared-down deal that probably won’t include big immigration law changes such as future citizenship for undocumented immigrants. It also is expected to focus on fencing rather than a wall, Bloomberg says. In the meantime, the President has accepted speaker Pelosi’s invitation to deliver this year’s State of the Union address on Feb. 5, after the speech was delayed a week because of the government shutdown battle. “We have a great story to tell and yet, great goals to achieve!” Trump wrote Pelosi earlier this week. “I look forward to seeing you on the 5th.” There is a great deal of other business underway now, as well. For example, the Senate advanced legislation 74-19 that would impose sanctions on Syria more than a month after president Trump said he would withdraw American forces from the conflict there. Democrats voted three times to block the measure during the five-week partial government shutdown, saying they wouldn’t agree to consider it until the agencies reopened. The measure would direct the administration to impose sanctions on entities that do business with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, such as selling petroleum products or aircraft parts. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., introduced a stand-alone Syria sanctions bill in the House that was passed by voice vote last week. The Senate measure also would let state and local governments refuse to do business with anyone who boycotts Israel. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has said that while she supports Israel, she opposes the anti-boycott measure as a violation of the Constitution’s protection of free speech. In the area of ag policy, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Pat Roberts, R-Kan., announced on Monday that he is in the beginning stages of crafting a new Child Nutrition Act, which governs the National School Lunch Program. “If Congress is to pass a new child nutrition bill this year, we’ll need to have all parties come to the table with solutions to these challenges…not just politics and rhetoric,” Roberts said at the National School Boards Association Advocacy Institute. A Senate child nutrition bill won committee approval in January 2016 but advanced no further. Roberts and Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., have signaled interest in getting the measure passed. Bloomberg also noted that the deadline for the U.S. escalation of tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods if no breakthrough deal on trade relations is reached is nearing. Following a round of negotiations in Beijing in early January, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He has arrived in Washington for what the White House is describing as “very, very important” talks this week. President Trump is expected to meet Liu, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is also going to take part in the negotiations this week. A delegation of Chinese officials including central bank governor Yi Gang, the deputy chief of the nation’s top economic planner Ning Jizhe and the deputy ministers from the government departments that oversee industrial policy, agriculture and treasury, are accompanying Liu. Even as the U.S.-China negotiations get underway, the U.S. moved forward with criminal charges against Huawei, China’s largest technology company, alleging it stole trade secrets from an American rival and committed bank fraud by violating sanctions against doing business with Iran. Huawei has been the target of a broad U.S. crackdown, including allegations it sold telecommunications equipment that could be used by China’s Communist Party for spying. The charges filed this week also mark an escalation of tensions between the world’s two largest economies, which are mired in a trade war that has roiled markets, Bloomberg noted. The talks in the budget committee conference likely will top the news agenda for the time being since the long recent shutdown has left a dramatic impression on the US political consciousness. Certainly, these efforts at compromise are of key importance to producers and should be watched closely as they proceed, Washington Insider believes.