Senate Lawmakers Press State for More Details on Malaysia Trafficking Upgrade
The top two officials on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged the State Department on July 29 to provide a briefing on the “factual basis” of the Malaysian and Cuban upgrades in the agency’s 2015 trafficking report. The upgrades to…
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Tier 2 on the trafficking scale has caused uproar among trade critics and human rights advocates (see 1507270031). Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, have called the Malaysia decision politically-motivated (see 1507200004). That upgrade removes an obstacle to closing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations with all 12 parties. The 2015 Trade Promotion Authority law, signed by President Barack Obama in late June, bars the U.S. from using expedited mechanisms in passing free trade agreements deals with Tier 3 countries. “We recognize that U.S. policy and engagement on trafficking does not exist in a vacuum, and we appreciate the many varied and nuanced trade-offs that are necessary between competing policy issues,” said Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and ranking member Ben Cardin, D-Md. (here). “We also believe that it is critical that the impartial reliability of the [Trafficking in Persons] Report be safeguarded and maintained if it is to have utility on this critical issue in the future.” Lawmakers had previously planned to include a provision in a final Customs Reauthorization bill to supersede the TPA language (see 1507070066).