The White House wants to move the pending free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama through Congress by July 4, according to William Lane, government relationsdirector for Caterpillar, who based this assertion on his conversations with senior officials. Speaking April 8 with reporters at an roundtable hosted by the National Foreign Trade Council, Lane said in response to a question that he is “100 percent confident” the administration’s objective is to meet the July 1 deadline for all three deals set by Republican leaders, notably House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.). “We’ve all been in the White House for a lot of signing ceremonies in the last week of July or the first week of August,” Lane said, adding: “None of us are taking vacations.”
