Talks in limbo: What happened in the U.S. Congress and what’s next

WASHINGTON • For the U. S . president, it was a day of humiliation. For international free-trade talks, a moment of hesitation.

A dozen countries including Canada are now probing the debris from a disastrous day in Barack Obama’s efforts to reach a major trade deal.

It’ll quickly become clear whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement was temporarily derailed by the U.S. Congress, or more permanently sidelined Friday.

Obama made an extremely rare visit to Capitol Hill, to lobby members of his own party to support a provision that would pave the way for a so-called fast track toward a deal.

With trade talks a late-stage priority for his presidency, Obama’s Democratic allies sent him back up the street to the White House, empty-handed.

The insta-reaction from some commentators was that it heralded the final, lame-duck phase of Obama’s presidency. Others saw proof of the Democratic party’s leftward drift.

A veteran of the original Canada-U.S. free-trade negotiations explained the stakes for the international community: Unless the president gets fasttrack authority to negotiate, a trade agreement becomes a long shot.

The momentum gathered once Congress gave up its power to amend the accord and agreed to simply vote Yes or No later — a process better known as fast track. The sides began attacking a main sticking point: the mechanism to settle disputes between governments and companies.

This time key hurdles have included intellectual property, such as what power pharmaceutical companies might have to extend drug patents and agriculture subsidies.